


Siege of the Crescent Moon

by Horatio_Jaxx



Series: The Olympic Coven Trilogy [3]
Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:35:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 46,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28552467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Horatio_Jaxx/pseuds/Horatio_Jaxx
Summary: Four years after "Ascent of the Crescent Moon," Phillip Dwyer Jr. is an eight year old boy living happily in a world where vampires and shape-shifters are counted among his friends and family, and where gathering adversaries plot against all that he loves.
Relationships: Edward Cullen/Bella Swan, Jacob Black/Renesmee Cullen, Renée Dwyer/Charlie Swan
Series: The Olympic Coven Trilogy [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2022376
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	1. Brooding Lovers

“Come on in. It feels great.”

Nessie gently twirled about in the pond, her movements creating soft ripples on its surface. The pristine water mirrored the forest around it like a large sheet of glass, polished to high shine. Despite the reflection, her figure showed through the water with near perfect clarity. The visage of her physique and the interplay of light with the undulation of the water made her seemingly weightless dance look all the more sensuous.

“It’s your loss,” Nessie teased as she gently pushed off with her arms and hands, slowly gliding towards the center of the pond for the effort.

After a handful of seconds she made a scissor kick and floated still further away from the shore. Her eyes never deviated from her watcher as she glided backwards in the pond. A near grin spread across her face as she toyed with ideas regarding the thoughts behind the brooding stare of the watcher.

Nessie scissor kicked again as she twisted her body about so that the force of her effort would curve her back towards the shore. A second later she kicked again as she rolled over on her stomach and stroked with her left arm. As she pulled the water beneath her, she rolled over onto her back. She scissor kicked again as she gently guided herself with her arms to move parallel along the shore. After another scissor kick, two seconds later, she glided by her watcher. Her smile widened into a grin as she splashed water towards him with a flick of her wrist.

“Who’s in there besides you?”

Nessie gave a strong scissor kick as she pushed away with her arms. She sailed backwards towards the center of the pool. A wake of water rolled out across the pond in every direction. As she moved out from beneath the shadows of the forest edge, the sight of her unclad body became obscured by the reflection of the sunlit sky off of its surface. The watcher adjusted his gaze to evade the glare.

“Don’t think you can embarrass me into getting dressed.”

Her watcher lowered his head with a huff. The grass beneath him fluttered from the strength of his exhale. Several seconds later, he padded to his right as he scowled in Nessie’s direction. The soft waves on the surface swayed the lines of her figure as her legs swung back and forth in soft scissor kicks. Her watcher came to a stop after traveling a dozen feet. He lowered his head closer to the ground as he glowered in Nessie’s direction. The grass beneath his snout shuddered with every exhale of his breath. Nessie grinned at the sight him. She then rolled onto her stomach and swam with a pair of strokes, in a small semicircle. She reoriented herself into an upright position, with only her head showing above the water. She fixed her eyes once again on her watcher.

“Come on in. You can still be mad at me while you’re wet,” Nessie taunted with a wide smile.

Her watcher let out a last powerful huff before raising his head to fume at her from nearly six feet off the ground.

The pond where they were was one of dozens that dotted the forests in the upper elevations of the Olympic Peninsula. This particular pool had the distinction of being one of Nessie’s favorite locations. Besides the crystal clear water, the bottom of the pond was nearly fifteen feet down and the drop off was steep a dozen feet from the water’s edge. The width of the pond was nearly one-hundred feet at its widest point. Nessie enjoyed the freedom of movement this pond afforded her. She thought of it as her own private pool. Because of its location, she knew no mere mortal would be inclined to regularly traverse the mountainous terrain to get to it. She also suspected that only a handful of them knew of its existence. She used to make regular runs up to this place, usually in the company of her perennial partner. It had been more than a year since her last visit.

Rare hours in the day, during the summer months, were the ideal times for these excursions. Heavy rains would often hinder her enjoyment of the pond. At other times, the surrounding landscape became a soggy, muddy mess. This hour was one of the few pleasant times there. A drizzle earlier that day left the ground damp, but not overly wet. Approaching dark clouds promised more rains to come later that afternoon. For a brief time in between, the pond and its surroundings were perfect by Nessie’s estimation. She liked the way the lush green landscape enclosed it from all sides. She enjoyed the way that the trees and shrubbery combined to dampen out the sounds of the outside world. The open area of the lake permitted the diffused light that filtered through the clouds to nourish a kaleidoscope of wild flowers that ringed the pond. For all intents and purposes, this was Nessie’s private garden oasis.

“I’m not coming out until after we’ve had a swim together.” Nessie continued to tease her watcher as she gracefully treaded water. “So you might as well change.”

Nessie’s wolf form watcher studied her for several seconds more before starting to phase into a different shape. It took less than two seconds for the transition to complete. At the end of this time the brown-hued wolf was gone, in its place stood the nude person of Jacob Black.

In past visits to this pond, Jacob always retrieved his shorts from Nessie before going into the bushes and transitioning into human form. This new predilection for swimming in the nude negated, in his mind, the need for modesty. It also angered him to a large extent and made him all the more embolden for it. In all of their past visits to this, or any pond, Nessie always gave due diligence to the pretense of modesty. She never flaunted herself at him, like the way she was doing just then. It was not, however, her newly acquired free spirit that was angering him. It was the motivation behind the behavior that was fueling his temper.

Jacob knew that Nessie was toying with his desire for her in the hope of arousing his lust. This playing with his affections after wounding him emotionally during their last outing in the forest was the crux of his wrath.

Jacob gathered no enjoyment from being manipulated for her amusement. He had spent much of the past year wondering where she was and who she was with. Now, while staring at her unclad slender figure, he teetered back and forth between rage and lust while he cursed the condition that made her so important to him. He told himself that he would not be used in this way, but even as he thought it, he knew this to be an empty declarative. His ardor for her was too plain to be seen and it was beyond his will to control this.

Nessie slowly examined Jacob up and down as she continued to gracefully tread water. A smile quickly spread across her face after taking particular note of Jacob’s erection.

“I thought you were angry with me,” Nessie mused with a grin.

Jacob was determined not to give her the satisfaction of appearing to be at all bashful. He defiantly strolled a dozen feet into the water. The bottom of the pond descended steadily. The water level was by then lapping against his pelvis. With his next step the bottom, seemingly, fell away. He plunged completely into the water only to bob back up with his head and shoulders. A second later he settled into the water with just his head appearing above the top. He then turned his attention onto Nessie and witnessed her gently backstroking away from him with a grin. Jacob began to breast stroke towards her as she moved away. Her course quickly became a wide arc. She was shortly moving away from the center of the pond and back towards the shore. Jacob did not hesitate to follow. He moved steadily towards her as if drawn by her flirtatious grin. There was no smile on Jacob’s face; no sign that he was amused about anything that was happening. There was only intent in his expression; a determination to reach her, to gather her up in his arms.

It took Nessie a handful of seconds to reach the shallow sides of the pond. Her back side slid up onto the bank as she backstroked into it. Jacob was nearly within arm’s reach when Nessie planted her feet along the steep sides of the pond and pushed herself forward into Jacob’s arms. He immediately pulled her into him and squeezed her into a passionate kiss. Nessie obliged this by throwing her arms about his neck and returning his passion with her own. They quickly sank into the water entwined in each-other’s arms. After a pair of seconds they broke from their embrace and pushed hard for the surface and the shore; still linked hand in hand. Jacob zealously pulled Nessie up onto the shallow bank. She followed his lead by kicking hard for the shore. Soon their feet were pushing off against the shallow bottom of the pond. No sooner had Jacob gotten his feet up under him did he gather Nessie up into his arms and carry her to the water’s edge. Dropping down on his knees, he lowered her onto the bank. Nessie continued to cling to him as he did this, pulling him down into a passionate kiss. Jacob lowered himself onto of her as they continued to kiss at a frenetic pace. Their lips repeatedly sought out the opposite pair as if they were desperately searching for the perfect connection.

Suddenly Jacob felt Nessie’s hand about his male member. He retracted himself from her lips and moaned with pleasure at the feel of her hand about him. A second later he lowered his head beside hers and began to caress her neck with his lips.

Nessie moaned at the feel of Jacob’s lips smooching on her neck where it arched below her chin. His penis felt hot and hard in her hand as she guided it to the entry of her womb. She shuddered at the feel of its head against her and then suddenly he was inside her. She relinquished all control as Jacob drove himself into her hard and repeatedly. His lust and his passion was his guide. He never wanted anyone as much as he wanted Nessie, then and there. His anger and his emotions pooled into an overwhelming desire to ravish her and his intellect was powerless to stop him.

Nessie entangled herself about him and matched his passion with her own; pulling and pushing with her legs and pelvis in an attempt to maximize her pleasure from each thrust of his member. She greedily clung to him while panting out his name in soft whispers.

Jacob’s lust powered him on for several minutes before reaching the peak of its intensity. Suddenly he moaned in unison with one powerful thrust of his pelvis. His entire body clinched into one massive spasm as his excitement erupted into an explosion of euphoria.

Nessie shuddered under the intensity of his orgasm. Her own excitement peaked in response. A tingle of excitement detonated into a crescendo that shot through her like electrified titillation. She constricted into Jacob’s final thrust as if she was trying to extract every drop of his passion.

Shortly, Nessie and Jacob went limp in each other’s arms. Their lust spent, they began to translate their feelings into soft caresses and kisses. Several seconds later Jacob pushed himself up onto his hands and knees and stared down at Nessie with a look of submission. The scowl that appeared to be etched onto his face before was gone. He looked at Nessie as if he was entranced. He studied her face as though he was seeing it for the first time. He held this expression as Nessie looked back with a growing smile that suggested she was pleased with herself. A few seconds later she broke the silence.

“So, I’m guessing you weren’t quite so angry with me after all?”

Jacob gave no indication that he heard the question that was put to him. His mind was adrift in the passion of the moment. It felt to him as if he was no longer in control of his thoughts. All that he knew for sure was that a feeling had welled up inside of him that had an overwhelming need to come out. With a look of puzzlement, he stared into Nessie’s eyes for several seconds more. A hint of a smile took shape on the ends of his lips. Another inhale of air followed and then came a soft exhale carrying the sound of his words.

“I love you, Nessie.”

The playful expression on Nessie’s face dissolved away. A second later she looked away as if embarrassed by Jacob’s confession. She then scrambled to get out from beneath him. Jacob gave way to this effort almost immediately.

“What’s wrong?” Jacob questioned with an inflection of surprise.

“Nothing,” Nessie responded as she hurried to redress herself.

Nessie’s response was an obvious lie. Jacob’s confession had unnerved her far more than she ever expected it would. She knew the extent of his feelings for her and that these feelings were fixed due to the imprinting. What had rattled her so much by this confession was the absence of the pretense of simple friendly affection. She knew that Jacob wanted his feelings returned. She knew that he wanted to hear the words.

_~~~~~Line Break~~~~~_

Nessie had spent the latter half of her senior year of high school brooding over the love she wanted but was denied. After having her affections rejected by Sean Bowden, she went through the remainder of the school year with little regard for any males of her acquaintance. She regularly discouraged the advances of both boys and men with a scowl or a roll of her eyes, and she seldom showed any regards for their feelings. It was not until after her graduation that her interests in the opposite sex renewed. The end of her near daily encounters with Sean, and the looming prospect of meeting a large number of new young men re-excited her appetite for the male sex.

Nessie enthusiastically set off for the University of California, Berkeley, in the fall of the year just past. She was hungry for adventure and saw college as the first step to into an exciting new era of her life. She relished the freedom that her vampire relations enjoyed and felt restricted from this by her adolescent status. At Berkeley she felt like an adult and she was eager to take this new designation out for a spin. She freely mingled among the campus student body, making many new friends in the process. She stayed out late, sometimes throughout the night. She experimented with intoxicants. Most were legal. Some were not. She partied frequently and explored her sexuality with a growing fervor. For the first time in Nessie’s life, boundaries were hers for the setting.

Over the course of her freshman year she had a dozen suitors for her affections and five times that many admirers from afar. The wide selection of choices gave her no reason to rush into a commitment, not that she was interested in being in one. Nessie was free and she wanted to remain that way, at least for the near future.

The absence of Jacob did much to make Nessie’s freshman year an enjoyable one, for the most part. Since her rebuke of his attentions half way through her senior year of high school, she had seen and heard little of him. This provided for her the illusion that all was well with Jacob. It was only when she took the time to stop and think about him that she became concerned about his wellbeing. These reflections, at first, were rare and infrequent. It was not until the final month of her freshman year of college that she came to realize that any man she entertained having a prolonged relationship with was being measured against Jacob in the back of her mind, and all were being penalized with rejection for coming up short.

Nessie knew this to be an irrational assessment and suspected it was due to some feelings of guilt about how she left things between them. By the end of the school year she had reconciled within herself that she would entertain her attraction to Jacob without making any commitment to him.

_This will be enough for him, I’m sure. I love Jacob. I will always love him. But I cannot give him all of my tomorrows. He’ll know that. He’ll understand that._

Subconsciously, Nessie knew that this was just a hopeful rationalization.

_~~~~~Line Break~~~~~_

“Why are you running away if nothing is wrong?” Jacob queried after climbing to his feet.

“You’re spoiling it,” Nessie responded as she continued to hastily clothe herself.

“What, Nessie?” Jacob returned in an exasperated tone. “What am I spoiling?”

Jacob stood with his hands on his hips, towering above Nessie as she stooped to tie her shoes. She vigorously tied one after the other while deliberately choosing not to look at Jacob’s nude person.

“Are we running or not?” Nessie asked with a huff after standing up to look Jacob in the eyes.

He, in turn, had no response to this inquiry. Jacob suspected, with some annoyance, what the answer to his question was. He was all the more angered by the fact that she would not satisfy him with it. After several seconds of silence, Nessie reached down and gathered Jacob’s shorts and shirt into her hands. She erected herself again, gave Jacob a last look of disapproval and then sprinted away into the forest. Jacob stood there for a dozen seconds more, sulking, before phasing into his wolf form and sprinting off behind her.


	2. House and Home

Charlie Swan was the former Chief of Police of Forks, Washington, the father of Bella Cullen and the grandfather of Nessie Cullen. Renee Swan was his wife for the second time in their lives. They remarried a year and a half earlier. Phillip, or Li’l Phil as he was commonly called, was Charlie’s stepson and the biological son of Renee Swan and Phillip Dwyer. He was her second husband after Charlie. Together, Charlie, Renee and Li’l Phil made their home in Port Angeles, Washington.

Their move from Forks became necessary when Charlie was elected to the office of Clallam County Sheriff. Port Angeles was the county seat of same. The Swan family moved into their new city and new home one year earlier. The house they took possession of here was a four bedroom, four bathroom wood frame building in the traditional style. It had hardwood flooring and a fireplace in the living-room. Its situation, not far from downtown Port Angeles, enabled its large bay windows to provide spectacular views of the harbor and the distant snowcapped mountains. A basement and a three car garage gave Charlie plenty of room to store his hunting and fishing gear. The house itself was nestled within a large community of like homes, each separated from the other by a yard and some fencing; no surrounding forest to isolate it or them from the rest of the world. From Renee’s perspective it was ideal.

Charlie was still uncomfortable with this change in residency. Forks had been his home for all of his life and had been the only place where he wanted to live. Even the house that he vacated in Forks had felt like a permanent fixture in his world; an old shoe that had shaped itself over time to fit comfortably about his foot. His new home in Port Angeles had yet to become equally as agreeable, and he had his doubts that it ever would. He knew this discomfort was due, primarily to his work. In the beginning Charlie was nervous about his new job in Port Angeles. He often questioned in his mind if he possessed sufficient experience or skills to be the Sheriff of Clallam County. He was uncomfortable with the prospect of associating with high level city, county, and state officials on a regular basis. In Forks, nearly everyone he answered to or interacted with, in his capacity as Chief of Police, were either people he knew from his childhood or there’s. This new position required that he learn to function outside of his comfort zone. Not quite two years into his newly elected position as Sheriff of Clallam County, Charlie Swan was still feeling a little out of his depth.

With regards to the discomfort Charlie was feeling with his new home, Renee was an attributing factor here. Within Charlie’s mind, the house in Forks was solely and completely his, and everyone there were living under his roof. The Cullen house, outside of Forks, never felt as if it belonged to him or Renee. They both felt as if they were housesitting for the Cullens and consciously avoided making any wholesale changes there. In Port Angeles, the house felt as if it belonged to Renee, or so it seemed to Charlie. What he did not know was that she was doing everything within her power to nurture this perception. Renee was not about to let Charlie turn this home into his new old shoe. This was a moniker she assigned Charlie’s house in Forks towards the end of their first marriage.

From day one, Renee threw all of herself into the task of furnishing and decorating their new home. There was no location in the house where Charlie did not fear that he might inadvertently break some rule of behavior. He took to calling their house a display home that was only fit to be inhabited by mannequins. Renee ignored these remarks and continued to pester him about wiping his feet, or for not using a coaster and when it was not permissible to lounge about in one of the family rooms. Charlie lived in perpetual dread of disturbing one of Renee’s meticulous arrangements.

Renee had never in the past been such a task master when it came to managing a home. She had been what some might call a maverick for much of her adult life. A small house with a comfortable and colorful décor was all she required, other than someone to share it with. This demeanor she was now exhibiting was the product of her new situation in life. The younger version of her-self would have given no thought to grand appearances. She had no ambitions beyond the minor social status she existed in and she reveled in the freedom that came with this standing. As the wife of Clallam County Sheriff, Charles Swan, she felt a need to extend herself beyond that world. She was happy for Charlie and proud to be his wife. Constructing a home to match his new station was an exciting adventure for her. This endeavor was secondary only to her desire to make the ideal home for her son, Phillip. Renee knew herself as the wife of the Sheriff of Clallam County, which meant, in her mind, advantages and opportunities for her son. She embraced her new life with enthusiasm. She had reconciled within herself to fit into this new society despite Charlie’s hesitations. Where Charlie saw difficulties, Renee saw possibilities.

Out of all of the Swans, Phillip was the one member most contented with their new home. The plethora of children living about provided numerous new playmates for him and he wallowed in their acquaintances. At this time, he had just completed his kindergarten year of public school. He was a rambunctious child who was eager to play, as most children are at that age. His face shared a resemblance with his biological father. This was a feature Renee was happy to see. She took hope from this that he would grow up to be tall, athletic and handsome as was his father. He was not yet old enough to show an aptitude for sports. He did; however, show a great deal of interest in watching and attending sporting events with Charlie. His appearance was unspectacular, as one might expect of a five year old. He was, however, an attractive boy of normal height and weight for his age and he possessed a happy disposition. He was curious about everything and ravenous for the attentions of others, a typical child in all respects.

Where Phillip did differ from his friends was in his knowledge of the preternatural beings that inhabited the peninsula. His close association with Nessie, Bella, the Cullens and the Quileute shape-shifters made their secrets hard to keep from him. The family admonished him about telling what he knew. Phillip rarely complied with these instructions. Fortunately his remarks on the subject were generally taken as fanciful tales by adults and mature kids. Children his age were often quick to believe what he said and equally quick to forget it.

Nessie was a frequent visitor at the Swan residence when she was on the peninsula. The house outside of Forks remained her place of residence after the move by the Swans. The Cullens continued to use that location as their home base when they were on the peninsula and Nessie favored their company. She waited there eagerly for their visits and reveled in the stories of their adventures. Despite this affinity for her vampire relations, Nessie missed the close company of Charlie, Renee and Phillip. To make up for this loss, as best she could, she spent much of her weekends visiting with her relations in Port Angeles. Often she would come over simply to spend the day with Phillip. On the day after her sexual encounter with Jacob her only interest was to converse with Renee.

“You okay?”

Renee took note of Nessie’s sullen demeanor as soon as she entered the house. She waited more than an hour for Nessie to broach the subject that was causing this condition. When this did not happen, Renee felt compelled to question her directly.

“I’m fine,” Nessie defensively responded.

“Really,” Renee challenged with a look of disbelief.

Renee was well aware of the signs of depression in Nessie. She had watched her go through the last half of her senior year of high school in perpetual doldrums. The sight of Nessie following her around as she washed, ironed and folded the house linens and clothes told her that there was something on her mind.

“I’m having some issues with Jacob,” Nessie confessed somberly.

Renee made no reply. She knew that Nessie would say what she wanted to say in her own time. While showing only a passing interest in the conversation she continued to fold clothes recently removed from the drier. It was eleven o’clock on a Sunday morning. The sky was overcast with clouds, but the day was bright by Olympic Peninsula standards. Phillip was fixed in front of the television in the family room. A Disney DVD was being played there for his amusement. Renee and Nessie were situated at the opposite end of the room.

“We see things differently,” Nessie continued after a long pause.

“That’s usually the case,” Renee casually spoke back.

“He wants things I can’t give him,” Nessie asserted.

“Did you tell him that?”

“No, not in so many words,” Nessie dejectedly responded. “He told me, he loves me,” she reported a second later in an amazed tone.

“We already knew that,” Renee countered mildly aghast.

“But he shouldn’t have said it,” Nessie insisted.

“Why?”

“He just shouldn’t say things like that,” Nessie answered in a confused voice.

“Oh,” Renee reacted a second later and then returned to her ironing.

Nessie knew from this response that Renee had surmised the situation but was withholding her opinion on the subject. This stoic front was the last thing she wanted. The female members of the family were her primary resource for consultation and feedback. She confided most with Bella. This was in part because she was her mother and their relationship as such was close. The main reason; however, was because of their commonality. Nessie had caught up with Bella in maturity and was closer to her in real-time age. It was only Bella’s absence from the peninsula that drew her to Renee.

“When he says things like that, he puts me on the spot, don’t you think?”

Nessie framed her question in a way that she hoped would coax Renee out of her silence.

“I suppose,” Renee tossed out halfheartedly. She knew this was not the response that Nessie wanted, but she was reluctant to take a position in this situation between her and Jacob. She knew that Nessie simply wanted to sound out her thoughts and she was happy to let her do so at her expense.

“I didn’t imprint on him,” Nessie quickly qualified. So I shouldn’t be expected to have the same feelings.”

“But you do love him?” Renee queried more than stated with a confused tone.

“Yeah, I do love him,” Nessie retorted defensively. “Just, not in that way.”

Renee had her own reasons for being skeptical of that answer, but she chose not to call Nessie on it. She had her own concerns regarding Nessie’s future. The last thing she wanted to do was try to steer her in a direction she thought she should go. Renee felt this was a decision Nessie needed to make on her own.

“I do love him,” Nessie continued to declare to herself. “It’s just that I want more for myself.”

“What does that mean?” Renee queried quizzically.

“I’m not a shape-shifter,” Nessie insisted.

“Is he asking you to be one?”

“He’s asking me to tie my future to his.”

“I see.”

“No, you don’t see,” Nessie implored in a near pleading tone. “I don’t know what I am. I don’t know where I fit in and I’m afraid Jacob is asking me to give away my life before I’ve had a chance to live it. Tell me what you think I should do, Grandmother.”

Renee took a moment to ponder the question before answering.

“You’ll have to come to that answer on your own.”

Nessie detected the finality in Renee’s voice and knew that she would get no more answer than that. After giving some thought to her words, she concluded that her life was her own and that she was not going to let anyone prepackage her future for her. She then asserted in her mind that this was the decision she would live by and then turned her attention to Phillip. She spent the rest of her visit playing with him.

Despite this deliberation, Nessie spent the remainder of the summer reinforcing this resolution in her thoughts. She avoided any one on one encounters with Jacob. He responded to this by repeatedly pushing for a return to the subject of their relationship in every private conversation he could steal from her. She, in turn, blandly discarded these inquiries and stoically endured his displeasure with this. She convinced herself that this was for the best and with each passing day became ever more determined to be hard and unyielding with Jacob regarding this matter.

In the coming fall, Nessie returned to Berkley relieved to be out of Jacob’s proximity. She jumped back into her social life there with a determination to free herself from the guilt she was feeling over him. To her frustration the effect of this effort worked to the opposite. With each party she attended or date she went on, the activity invariably produced thoughts of Jacob. She soon discovered that the only cure for these meanderings was study and threw herself into her academics with a renewed ferocity. By the end of the fall semester, Nessie was sporting “A’s” in every subject she undertook.


	3. Xmas Dinner

A four wheeled drive silver Chevy Suburban carefully rolled out from beneath the white cloak of winter snow that had engulfed the forest about the home of the Cullens. The landscape was all but smothered in the white flakes of crystallized ice. Parts of trunks and limbs of trees peaked through this blanket of white where winter had failed to mask them. The large bay windows and small areas of the sides of the house were the only segments of the building that peaked out between the thick layer of snow lying across its roof and the large piles heaped about its base. With the lights inside the house turned off, the structure was nearly shrouded from view. The sky above was a placid ceiling of whites and grays. The air was still and frigid. It had snowed the night before and much of that morning. The midday sun abated the downpour, but the coming evening sky showed promise of more snow to come.

Each wheel of the Chevy Suburban was wrapped in chains to help the driver negotiate the slippery road beneath them. Spewing a steady stream of condensation out its tailpipe as it went; the vehicle slowed to a stop in front of the house. The engine was promptly shut off and the vehicle’s occupants; Charlie, Renee and Phillip, emerged from its interior bundled in heavy coats, hats, scarfs, gloves, mittens and boots. Charlie and Renee, with Phillip following behind, went to the back of the vehicle and removed from its rear compartment several packages wrapped in colorful patterned paper and ribbons. Phillip grabbed a small package for himself in an eager effort to be helpful. After reclosing the rear hatch, they began their trek towards the front door of the house. Phillip anxiously trotted ahead of his parents. As soon as they reached the landing at the top of the stairs, the front door swung open.

“Merry Christmas,” Alice, Jasper, Carlisle and Esme shouted. Alice did so with a little more enthusiasm than the others.

Charlie and Renee were all smiles at the sight of them.

“Hi, Merry Christmas to you,” Renee countered cheerfully.

“Merry Christmas,” Charlie added an instant behind.

“Merry Christmas,” Phillip screamed in unison with Charlie as he charged through the open doorway.

Esme snatched Phillip up into her arms. The small gift box spilled from his hands as she did. Alice deftly caught it before it could hit the floor.

“Come on in,” Alice implored with a smile. She, Jasper, Carlisle and Esme moved back to give way to their entry.

Renee and Charlie stepped into the house in response to their lead, thumping snow from their shoes as they did. The front door was quickly closed behind them, shielding the vestibule from the cold artic air that was radiating through the opening. The room warmed to a comfortable temperature almost immediately. Let me take those into the living-room for you,” Carlisle offered as he stepped over to Renee with his hands extended. Renee promptly surrendered her packages to him. Jasper made the same offer to Charlie and received the same result. Carlisle and Jasper then exited the vestibule with the packages in tow. Charlie and Renee shortly removed their heavy overcoats, scarfs and hats. Phillip did the same with the assistance of Esme. A minute later they were following Alice’s lead into the interior of the home.

The living-room of the house was tidy and all was in its place. Three wood logs were ablaze in the fireplace affixed in the far wall opposite to the room’s main entrance. The large ceiling to floor bay window that served as the connecting wall provided a picturesque view of the wintery world outside. Situated in the corner between the two was a large, elaborately ornate, Christmas tree. The large fir was nature made and stood all of eight feet high. Ornaments of varied colors, shapes and designs along with tinsel and candy-canes were strung liberally about it. Multicolored, flickering, Christmas tree lights illuminated this decoration in half a dozen colors. A two inch wide gold ribbon spiraled four revolutions up the tree. Adorning the top of it was a large silver star.

Carlisle and Jasper stood waiting in the room when Alice, Renee, Charlie, Phillip and Esme walked in. The sound of talking and laughter in the kitchen could clearly be heard from there. Emmett’s guffaws boomed the loudest. Off and on, Nessie, Bella, Rosalie and Edward chorused his mirth with less vigor. The subject that was provoking this merriment was beyond Charlie’s and Renee’s hearing to discern. However; they both had no doubt that their collective association and the general mood of the day was the predominant inspiration behind it.

The smell of food cooking in the kitchen filled the living-room as it did much of the house. Renee and Charlie sniffed the air for clues about the dinner menu. Had they the olfactory of a vampire they would have been able to sort through the aromas of baked ham glazed with brown sugar; candied yams coated with a maple syrup sauce; scalloped potatoes mixed with parsley, chives, onions, bacon, and Swiss cheese; green beans topped with crushed walnuts; roasted asparagus sprinkled with lemon juice and parmesan cheese; zucchini sautéed with garlic, red onions and bacon; roasted prime rib seasoned with salt and black pepper; a cranberry-kumquat relish and a pecan pie. Without this ability the best they could discern was that the list of dishes was extensive. Phillip; quite to the opposite, had no interest in any of this. His attention instantly locked onto the large collection of elaborately wrapped gifts beneath the Christmas tree. He raced over and secured the largest package there between his grasp and gazed upon it with awe as he spoke.

“Is this mine? Can I open it, Momma?”

“Hold on,” Renee quickly answered back as she raced over to her son and checked his actions. “We have to wait for the others.”

Even as she said this, Bella and Nessie were leading the remainder of the family into the living-room.

“Oh, you found it,” Bella called out to Phillip as she walked into the center of the room.

“Is it for me?” Phillip questioned back excitedly.

“Yes, it sure is,” Bella Responded with a smile.

Bella stepped over to Charlie even as she spoke and gave him a hug.

“Hi Dad...”

“Hi Bells. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” Bella responded as she stepped back. “Merry Christmas, Mom,” she spoke again as she turned towards her mother.

“Merry Christmas to you, Baby,” Renee answered back as she and Bella crossed over into each other’s embrace.

They shortly separated and a boisterous exchange of greetings between the Swans and the remaining Cullens quickly followed. Nearly all of this exuberance was directed at Phillip. Emmett hoisted Phillip off the floor, held him high overhead and gave him a quick twirl. This was done to the glee of the six year old. Nessie was equally as enthusiastic as she smothered him in hugs and kisses. Rosalie followed Emmett’s lead and gave Phillip a slow twirl as she held him snug into her embrace. Phillip excitedly soaked up this attention. By the time that all of the greetings had been completed, he had forgotten about the myriad of presents beneath the tree. It took a minute long lull from this spirited activity to bring his mind back to them.

“Can I open it now, Momma?” Phillip pleaded after dropping down on his knees in front of the largest gift box.

Nearly half of the gifts situated beneath the tree belong to Phillip. The two families; connected by marriage, devoted most of their attention at this time of year to their youngest member. In the past, Nessie had also been a favorite target of the families’ excess of affection. However; the rapidly aging daughter of Bella and Edward reached a level of maturity three years earlier that obligated her to be equally generous in response to this attention. To ease her efforts, the families reluctantly agreed to restrain themselves to one thoughtfully considered gift apiece; the same as they did for each other.

For Charlie and Renee, finding gifts for their vampire in-laws was at first a yearly challenge. After the first two years of their association the Swans figured out that the only thing they could give to the Cullen vampires that would be of any practical use to them was clothing. Renee assumed full responsibility for this endeavor and spent the whole of each year on the lookout for something that was perfectly suited for each of them.

The Cullen vampires were inclined to be equally limited in scope, but for an altogether different reason. They feared large, ostentatious gifts would draw unwanted attention to the Swans and to them. To minimize this concern, they invariably limited their presents, to Charlie and Renee, to gift certificates of semi generous denominations, or modest trinkets for their home. The Cullens were even less generous when it came to gifts between themselves. These presents were usually things that had a special significance to the receiver and little or no value to anyone else. Giving gifts was not a common practice within the vampire community. It was only the Cullens’ association with others outside of their kind that motivated them to participate in these annual practices.

It took Phillip a little more than thirty minutes to rip through the packaging of all nine of his gifts. The rest of the family had not opened any of theirs during this time. Their interests were busy enjoying Phillip’s excitement over the new toys he had acquired. The collection he unpackaged at this time consisted of a video gaming system, a pair of plastic air guns with foam projectiles, a toy drum set, a toy laptop computer, a kick scooter, a toy acoustic guitar, a comic-book character action figure, a pair of toy walkie-talkies and a pogo stick. With nothing left for Phillip to open, the two families considered, for the first time, opening something belonging to someone else. No one was eager to do this. The exchanging of gifts was mostly a formality for the two families. The real gift for them was their collective presence beneath the same roof. However; the need to do something prevailed over Alice’s reluctance and she leapt up onto her feet to start off the exchange.

“Well, if no one else is going to start, than I guess I’ll have to do the honors.”

Retiring to the dinner table would have been their first choice of things to do, but the guest list was not complete for this. The arrival time suggested by Nessie had passed twenty minutes earlier. She became increasingly worried that her last two guests were not coming. Nessie feared a no show no call would suggest some disharmony between her and them. Over the course of the past thirty minutes, she ducked away to check on the status of the food on five separate occasions. Renee joined her on one of these trips, and Bella and Esme assisted her twice. Their concern was that the meal might burn or dry out. The Christmas dinner that Nessie and her vampire relations had prepared was safely preserved by this attention, but they doubted this would be the case for much longer. Alice was in the midst of searching through the remaining unopened gifts when the sound of a car out front, rumbling to a stop, diverted her attention.

“That must be them,” Alice insisted as she went to the window. “It is,” she added three seconds later.

Nessie set off immediately for the front door with Esme and Carlisle a few steps behind. After a brief wait in the vestibule for the new arrivals to reach the front entrance, Nessie pulled open the door and ushered them in.

“Hi, come on in. Merry Christmas,” Nessie greeted with a smile to both Jacob and Billy Black.

Esme and Carlisle echoed her tidings.

Jacob hurried into the vestibule with Billy hoisted up in his arms. They both tossed out a “Merry Christmas” as they crossed through the doorway.

“Everyone is in the living-room,” Esme instructed with a point.

“I’ll go get the chair,” Carlisle advised a second behind as he rushed out the front door.

Nessie and Esme followed their late arrivals into the living-room. Carlisle shortly followed with Billy’s wheelchair. The Blacks were greeted warmly by the Cullens, for the most part and vice versa. Rosalie and Jacob maintained a playful hostility towards one-another. This was the high point of any animosity between them. The adversities they shared in their joint recent history did much to make them comfortable in each other’s company. Charlie’s affection for Billy and Jacob was a motivating factor for them all to get along as well. The Blacks were as dear as family to him and Charlie had not gone through a Christmas within the past decade and a half without spending some portion of it in their company. It was for this reason more than any other that no Cullen would consider excluding them from this dinner, Nessie most of all.

Half a dozen minutes after the arrival of the Blacks, the festivities moved into the dining room. The dining area was a decoration in itself. Large red, green and white stars and snowflakes dangled from strings attached to the ceiling. An eight place oak table with a black cherry finish was in the center of the room. A Red, green and white floral patterned table cloth adorned its top. A large bouquet of red roses, red berries, pinecones, carnations, flat cedar and magnolia leaves in a wide shallow vase served as the centerpiece. Two, three inch wide and six inch tall, red pillar candles situated on a flat green glass leaf shape pedestals were positioned on opposing sides of the centerpiece along the table’s length. Six place settings of tableware rimmed with gold, red and green floral designs, clear crystal glassware and brightly polished stainless steel silverware were situated on the table.

Nessie, with some help from Renee, conducted the presentation of the dinner. The Cullens, minus Nessie, shortly left the dining area after they had seen to the comfort of the others and had witnessed their delight with the décor. The Cullens did not want to appear to be hovering while the others ate. While it was possible for them to consume mortal food, the pretense of enjoying the activity in front of the Swans and the Blacks was too disconcerting, to all, for the Cullens to endure. Instead, they took pleasure from their mortal and half mortal relations feasting on the fruits of their efforts as they waited in the living-room for reports on their culinary expertise. Much of this information they received during the first half of the meal as they listened to their discourse. Compliments about the food were tossed out to Nessie at near regular intervals. Often she would defer their praise to Esme or Alice or some other member of her vampire relations.

At the start of the second half of the dinner, the conversation turned onto commentary about the Christmas activities of friends and family within their respective communities. It shortly transitioned from there into humorous and/or interesting anecdotes regarding the follies and triumphs of Christmases past. Charlie and Renee told stories about their early Christmases together during their first marriage. Billy related stories of his past Christmas experiences, with and before Jacob. All were in high spirits. Nessie eagerly took in every story and Phillip simply reveled in the gaiety of the event. All were in the midst of laughter when Charlie stopped to comment to Billy and Jacob.

“Speaking of bad Christmases, you should be thankful you didn’t have to attend the Christmas pageant at Jefferson Elementary.”

Some brief chuckles erupted in response to this comment.

“That bad, was it?” Jacob questioned with a laugh.

“It wasn’t _that_ bad,” Renee quickly defended. “And you were the best,” she dotingly spoke to Phillip sitting to her left.

Charlie was seated at the head of the table at Phillip’s immediate left. Nessie was seated to Charlie’s immediate left and across from Phillip. Jacob and Billy were seated to Nessie’s left, in that order.

“You had a part in the play?” Jacob quickly queried Phillip with a smile.

Phillip nodded his head in the affirmative as his mouth continued to work on his latest spoonful of food.

“Did you have any lines?” Billy questioned a second behind.

Phillip again nodded in the affirmative as he worked to finish the morsel in his mouth.

“He was one of the lambs,” Nessie quickly explained. “So he had to walk around and bah like a lamb.”

“Well this I have to hear,” Billy exclaimed with a smile.

“Let Billy hear your lamb call,” Renee gleefully encouraged.

Phillip completed a last couple of swallows as he leaned forward over the table from his high chair. His hands straddled his plate. He looked across at Billy excitedly and then let out an enthusiastic bah. He repeated this rendition several times in response to the smiles and applause from all there. After a brief time, Renee reined him in with a gentle grasp of her hands about his waste.

“Okay, that’s good. We’ve heard enough,” Renee advised as she situated him back into his seat.

Pleased with himself, Phillip gleamed at all there and then returned to his meal.

“Well I’m impressed,” Jacob acknowledged cheerfully. “I would have come just to see that.”

Phillip soaked up Jacob’s praise with a brief dance of excitement in his seat as he munched on his food.

Charlie took a moment to smile admiringly at the six year old. “Well, he was cute in his costume.”

“It was a cute show for five, six, seven and eight year olds,” Nessie defended. “I thought the sets could have been a little better,” she critiqued a second behind. “But it was still a cute show.”

“Yeah, well maybe you can engineer some better sets after you graduate,” Charlie jokingly tossed out. “Because I can’t imagine what else you can use a degree in Humanities for.”

“There are lots of things you can do with a Humanities degree,” Renee insisted.

“I’m sure there are lots of jobs out there where a degree in Humanities might be a plus, if not necessarily a requirement,” Charlie playfully retaliated.

“What are you worried about, Charlie?” Jacob laughingly joined in. “You’re the County Sheriff. You can give her a job.”

Before Charlie or anyone could respond to this, Nessie spoke up with a somewhat solemn report.

“I’m not getting a job after I graduate.”

For a brief moment the table went silent. Nessie’s statement was not shocking to anyone there, but it was unexpected. An explanation was needed and all, aside from Phillip, turned to Nessie with mildly perplexed expressions as they pondered what that might be.

“I’m leaving after I graduate,” Nessie softly spoke out over the table.

Jacob immediately went rigid after hearing this. He set his knife and fork down and leaned back in his seat as he glared at Nessie. All there, except Phillip, took note of his anxiety and all concealed it from view as best they could.

“Leaving,” Renee questioned with a surprised inflection? “Honey, where are you going?”

All at the table waited on her answer. Nessie glanced at their faces before rendering her response.

“I’m leaving Washington. I’m going away with Mom and Dad.”

Phillip took no notice of Nessie’s report and continued to consume his food. Charlie, Renee and Billy were stunned by this and went silent for lack of a response. Jacob grew all the more intense in his demeanor after hearing this and fumed as he worded his reactionary retort.

“You’re not one of them, Nessie. No matter how hard you try, you’ll never be one of them.”

Nessie’s temperament was instantly driven to anger by the tone of Jacob’s assertion. Even Phillip took time out from his eating in response to Jacob’s reproof. Charlie, Renee and Billy were once again stunned into spectators. Much of what transpired between Nessie and Jacob was unknown to them. Speculation based upon hearsay from others and random remarks from them were the limit of their knowledge regarding the private affairs between the two. This sudden outburst of open exchanges had them intent on hearing what more might get said.

“I’m more of a Cullen than I’ll ever be of anything else,” Nessie furiously declared. “And I’ll never be a wolf!”

“No one’s asking you to be,” Jacob argued back.

“My life is my own,” Nessie yelled as she turned to look at Jacob face on. “I won’t be programmed to meet someone else’s plan for me.

“But that’s exactly what you’re trying to do, Nessie,” Jacob countered with equal ferocity. “You’re trying to make yourself something you’re not.”

“And you’re not?” Nessie roared back an instant behind.

Jacob had no response for this and glared all the more angrily at Nessie for the loss of it.

“Ah, excuse me,” Charlie carefully interrupted three seconds later. “Does Bella know about your plans after college?”

During all of this time the conversation was being monitored by the Cullens. At the turn of the topic to Nessie’s future plans, Bella decided it was important that she become a part of it. She walked into the dining room just as Charlie finished his query. Nessie noted her entry and deferred to her for the answer.

“We’ve talked about the possibility of doing some traveling together.”

Bella expressed her words delicately, with an eye towards Jacob’s response. He, in turn, rose angrily to his feet while holding an intense stare towards her. He stood there for a moment without saying a word or making a motion. All eyes were upon him as their owners pondered what he might say next. Several seconds later, Jacob turned away from the table and stormed from the room. Less than a minute after that, he was out the front door and bounding through the forest, on all fours.


	4. Call of the Wretched

Jacob raced through the forest for more than an hour with only a general direction in mind. His anger with Nessie, and Bella most of all, blocked any real thoughts about where he was or where he was going. The deep snow, up to five feet high in some places, had finally begun to take its toll on his stamina. His legs began to ache from the exertion of running. The fatigue and the voices chattering in his head began to ruminate in his thoughts. Annoyed by this distraction from his fury, he shook them off and pushed himself still harder, refusing to give in to them.

The forest was a maze smothered in snow. The usual landmarks and smells that kept him informed of his general locale were hidden from view and from smell. The crisp clean air made airborne scents more pungent, but the smells beneath his feet were undetectable without first putting some effort into rooting them out. Jacob cared nothing for this. Nightfall was rising in the east and he was determined to get beneath it as fast as he could.

More voices began to boom in his thoughts. He shook his head as if they were flies buzzing about him. _Go away,_ he thought and then he pushed himself harder. Twin trails of condensation fell behind him on either side of his person as he raced through each powerful huff of breath he exhaled. Frost formed over his whiskers and turned them white. He bounded down the slope of a gorge. The snow at the bottom was so deep he had to hold his head high to keep his snout clear of it. On the upslope side he had trouble holding his footing. It took five strides to do what normally he would have done in one.

On the top side of the gorge the ground leveled out. A stand of trees lay before him. Their number and proximity to each other effectively walled off the terrain fifty yards in. The snow clinging about the trunks and caked upon the limbs all but camouflaged the forest beneath the white of winter. He raced on. The snow was not as deep here. He zigzagged around the trees with just enough space between himself and them to negotiate their width and still hold true to his course, due east.

_Jacob, don’t do this._

More voices in his head. _Leave me alone,_ Jacob thought as he raced on towards the failing light. It suddenly began to snow. The white of the forest and the ground beneath it began to blend into this curtain of flakes that filled the air. He raced on without concern for the new downfall. His vision was barely tested by the blinding panorama of white. The ground suddenly took on a downward slant. He could smell water quickly getting closer. The absence of sound told him it was likely not a stream.

_Where am I?_

Jacob allowed himself to ponder a thought. The trees suddenly thinned and an expanse of water quickly formed from behind the blind of snowfall. The width of the river was so great that he could not at first discern the far-side of its bank. A few seconds more and its distant shore vaguely came into view. The snowfall shrouded the distant landscape like a veil of mist. Despite this hindrance he knew exactly where he was now. He turned south along the river’s shore. There would be easier crossing further down, he thought. No sooner had he reset his course did his mind slip back into his fury.

_Why is she doing this to me?_ His mind echoed this questioned.

_Come home, Jacob._ The unwanted thoughts continued to flood his thinking in ever greater numbers.

_Is she deliberately trying to hurt me? Why must she always be against me?_

_She’s a vampire. Vampires are always against us._

Jacob tried to push Paul’s mind out his head. _It’s too crowded in her. I have to run faster. I have to go farther._

_Jacob, you can’t run away from this._

Sam’s thinking resonated in his head.

_I can’t think; too many minds._

Jacob raced on. Soon the river would divide into half a dozen shoals. The crossings would be less strenuous there.

_Why is it always Bella?_

_Bella doesn’t care about you.”_ Leah’s thinking answered back. _“None of them do._

_Leah, be quiet._

_Sam wants me to come back. Why can’t he leave me alone?_

_You need to be with the pack._

Sam’s thoughts continued to respond to his own. Jacob raced on. Running at this time felt as natural as breathing. He could not countenance the idea of stopping.

_Jacob, we’re here for you._

_~~~~~Line Break~~~~~_

Sam was at home with Emily and their two-year-old son, Aidan, when the nearby howl of a wolf alerted him to some new activity that required the attention of the pack. Emily was clearly perturbed by the call and vehemently voiced her displeasure. It was not often that Sam was pulled away by the business of the pack and she had always been accepting of this in the past. However; it was the poor timing of this summons that made it hard for her to bear.

“It’s Christmas day, what could be so important that you have to leave now?”

“I have to go,” Sam urged in a pleading tone. “It could be important.”

Emily grudgingly gave in to his apologetic request and hated herself for doing so a second behind.

Sam peeled off his shirt, shoes and socks before going to the entranceway at the front of the house. He unfastened his pants and opened the door. A shock of cold air rushed into the home. Sam quickly pushed his pants and underpants down about his ankles and then phased into his wolf form. The large black canine stepped out of his remaining clothing and raced off into snow covered wilderness beyond. Emily, with practiced proficiency, quickly secured his clothes and shut the door behind him.

Almost immediately Sam heard the rambling thoughts of Jacob racing through his mind like a monologue. He was in pain and Sam could feel it. Anger welled up in him. It took a conscious effort from him to realize that this was not his own. _Nessie, the problem was Nessie. Bella was taking her away. Bella, always Bella, why was she always doing this to me? No, it’s not me,_ Sam quickly corrected his thinking. _This is Jacob’s pain. She’s doing this to Jacob._

_He’s angry. He’s so angry;_ Cody’s thoughts reverberated inside Sam’s mind.

_Who else is here,_ Sam thought? He could feel them, but their minds were doing more comprehending than thinking. Leah’s mind suddenly reacted to his pondering, followed by Paul, Seth and Jared. _Good_ , he thought. _We need to get the others. We need to get them all._

Sam knew that the collective mood of the pack was shaped by their individual inputs. He also knew that, on average, a strong emotional presence outweighed seven times its number of unruffled thinking. There was no doubt in his mind that Jacob’s mood would exceed the average. The only question he had was did they have the numbers to restrain his torment?

He did not run for long before coming to a stop. Sam traversed a distance just great enough to conceal him from the eyes of passersby on the roads and popular trails within the area. He padded about between a stand of three trees as he monitored the minds floating about in his head. Shortly, a faint howl in the distance gave confirmation to what was transacting within Jared’s mind. A second howl in the opposite direction confirmed what Sam comprehended in Seth’s mind.

_Good, the others will be here soon,_ Sam briefly thought. He turned his attention back onto Jacob and tried to reason him out of his rage. It took all of his concentration to separate his own emotions from Jacob’s. He spewed positive assertions into the void that cross-connected their collective minds. Even as he did this he could feel Paul’s and Leah’s minds working against him. _He doesn’t need to hear this,_ Sam insisted in his thoughts. He knew that Paul and Leah had lingering biases against the Cullens simply because they were vampires. He could feel Jacob’s pain giving sanction to this normally suppressed sensitivity. There were only three within the pack that did not share this inclination, he being one of them.

Sam feared what Jacob might do while in this state of mind. This was something that all within the pack feared about the others and themselves most of all. They were all aware that their transition into shape-shifters came with a terrible temper that was hard to contain when provoked. The last thing any of them wanted was to be exposed for what they were, and/or thought to be a danger to the public. Because of this fear of what one of them might do, they instinctively became their own support group. Racing to the aid of one of their number was the most common motive for rallying together.

_How could she do this?_

Sam felt Quil Ateara’s mind register within the group. _Not now, Quil, Jacob needs us._

Quil instantly responded to Sam’s urging and began harden himself against Jacob’s emotions. In defiance of his own feelings on the subject, he pushed out positive thoughts. Each one was designed to soothe Jacob’s rage. All were tossed off as though they were butterflies trying to penetrate to the heart of a tornado. A minute later Embry joined him in this effort. He was followed over the next seven minutes by ten more shape-shifters, one after the other. All of them grudgingly appealed to Jacob’s tolerance.

_She’s not worth it._

_She’ll be back._

_She won’t leave._

Jacob’s mind did battle with this torrent of rationalizations designed to adjust his thinking and moderate his mood. An hour into this assault it felt to Sam that the tide of his emotion was turning away from his rage. Ideas for practical solutions for his dilemma began to seep into his thinking. The pack was quick to endorse this discussion.

_You can live without her. It has been done before._ Embry’s thinking rang like a bell among the whole.

_Many times,_ Paul supported.

Stories of past Quileute shape-shifters had been passed down by more than twenty generations of their ancestors. Replete within these narratives were accounts of many shape-shifters outliving their spouses. There were also a few regarding tribal members rejecting the affections of a shape-shifter.

_I don’t know how to live without Nessie._ Jacob pined out his response to this thinking.

_Liwanu imprinted on another after his mate died._ Walter quickly retaliated in his mind.

_So did Kitchi,_ Jared rallied in his thoughts.

These thoughts only served to remind Jacob of the many more that lived out their lives alone after the loss of their mate. Sam quickly reacted to Jacob’s perception. _But they lived on. You can do this, Jacob._

There were several stories of shape-shifters who lived detached lives alongside the person who rejected them. Memories of these Quileute members faintly echoed in the thoughts of all their, except Jacob. The pack tried to suppress these recollections for his sake. Jacob gave no thought to them as he droned on in his mind about the difficulty he faced trying to live without Nessie. Most of these stories reflected a negative future for him. It was well known by those members of the Quileute that collected and preserved the stories of their ancestors that these situations were breeding grounds for strife, and in more than half of these tales one or more of the individuals who played a part in them died a violent death.

The most common cause for these deadly endings was the triangle effect that this unrequited love had on the pack. The linked minds of the shape-shifters made it unavoidable for all to share in the suffering of the one that was rejected. The resentment this stirred up within their numbers provoked enmity towards the non-shape-shifter who rejected this attention and rage towards the pack by the shape-shifter compelled to love her or him. Their propensity for uncontrollable anger did the rest. Despite his best efforts, Sam’s mind relentlessly pestered him with worry about this dynamic within their ranks.

_You should forget Nessie,_ Paul resounded in his head. _In time you will find someone to replace her._

_I can’t forget her,_ Jacob reacted without thought. _You know I can’t forget her._

_Nessie is not going anywhere,_ Leah reassured in response. _She loves Jacob. She can’t leave him._

Of all the shape-shifters, outside of Jacob, Leah was the one most closely bonded to Nessie. The fact that they were both female, they shared each other’s secret and they both could out-sprint a deer, made their friendship nearly a predestined occurrence. Leah was reluctant to believe that Nessie would abandon Jacob and held fast to this thinking throughout this telepathic conference call. Sam took hope out of Leah’s assertion more so than anyone else. He desperately wanted an alternate ending to this scenario.

_The vampires can try all they want, but they’ll never sever Nessie’s love for you._

_Yes, this is all the doings of those vampires,_ Paul’s emotions boiled up in reaction to Leah’s thinking. _Edward has always been against Jacob, and Bella never wanted Nessie to have anything to do with him._

Sam could feel Jacob’s emotions surge with defiance in reaction to these accusations.

_We may have a treaty with them, but that doesn’t make them our friends._ Cody’s thinking erupted into this free-for-all.

_I don’t trust the Cullens._ Quil threw in his support for these feelings. _I believe they pretend to be our friends because they need us._

There was growing support for Quil’s position as a wave emotions swelled within their numbers. Jacob’s growing concurrence with this view was the primary fuel for this storm of resentment.

_They’ve been trying to separate us from the beginning._ This thought fumed inside Jacob’s head repeatedly.

_She wants to be like them,_ Leah asserted to the group.

_She’ll never be like them,_ Jacob raged in his thoughts. _No matter how hard she tries, no matter how hard they try, she’ll never be one of them._

_She’ll be back;_ Leah encouraged an instant behind Jacob’s outburst. _This is her home. This is the only place where she can be herself._

Sam could feel Jacob’s resolve growing. A realization suddenly popped into his mind. Jacob’s running had stopped. He could feel him contemplating a future with Nessie in it. He could feel himself being swept along in a wave of anti-Cullen sentiment. His separate feelings were helpless against this tide of bitterness that was poisoning them. He rallied to the call of defiance against the insincerity of the vampire family.

_This pretense of an alliance with the Cullens is over. We will honor our treaty and no more._

Jacob turned about and started his trek for home.


	5. Ominous Silence

Following the Christmas holiday break, Nessie returned to Berkley, California. She had no further contact with Jacob or the Quileute shape-shifters during the remainder of her stay on the peninsula. What made this so unusual was the holiday season. She expected some calls of well wishes from several within the pack. She became even more concerned when Leah failed to return any of the five calls she made to her. Nessie surmised that the pack had rallied around Jacob and were intentionally ignoring her. She left for college with the hope that tempers would cool down over time and all would return to as it was by her return in the summer.

The Cullen vampires gave little notice to the silence coming from the shape-shifters because they were not accustomed to any contact from them. They did their best to reassure Nessie that the shape-shifters would likely forgive her in time and to convince her not to worry if they did not. “They have to understand that this is your life to live.” The entire Cullen vampire family echoed this sentiment to her. The vampire family, minus Rosalie and Emmett, left the peninsula on the same day that Nessie set off for Berkley. Rosalie and Emmett stayed behind to care for the house and stand watch over the peninsula. This they agreed to do until Bella and Edward came to relieve them at the start of the next summer.

The Swans, unlike the Cullens, were accustomed to quite a bit of contact from select members of the Quileute. Most of the members they spoke to regularly had no knowledge of vampires or shape-shifters. Because of this Charlie and Renee were not expecting to hear any news about the Quileute shape-shifters. They did hear news from Billy that Jacob was hurt by Nessie’s plan to leave Washington State, but that he was dealing with it. The Swans, especially Renee, were keen to acquire any information they could about this situation. They did not, however, seek it out.

Charlie’s and Renee’s position on the subject of Jacob and Nessie mirrored the Cullens in most respects. Their first concern was for Nessie. Her wants and wishes came first. How their thinking differed from the Cullens was with regards to their belief in what those wants and wishes were. Renee, more so than Charlie, took Nessie’s claim, that she was not passionately in-love with Jacob, with a grain of salt. Both of the Swans thought that this match was close to being perfect and they feared that Nessie’s resistance was not a wise decision. However, this notwithstanding, Charlie and Renee were committed to supporting Nessie no matter what.

The shape-shifters in general were of no particular interest to Charlie and Renee, and they expected to hear nothing from or about them. They were, however, given to believe something was amiss by Nessie’s numerous inquiries to them regarding several of their members. In response to this, the Swans relayed her questions to Billy. The answer they received was, to them, of indeterminate value.

“Billy says that the wolves have been unusually moody lately. Why, he doesn’t know. He says they’re not talking much to him either.”

This report from Charlie only heightened Nessie’s concern. She, more so than any other outsider, understood how the temperament of the pack was shaped by the input of all of its members.

“Did they say anything about me?”

“No, not really, Billy seems to think that they’re more upset with Bella and Edward than they are with you. Just give them time sweetheart. I’m sure you’ll hear from them eventually.”

Billy imbued no ominous intentions into this report and the Swans inferred none from it. Nessie took from it some hope that all would be forgiven in time.

The Cullen vampires had little regard for the shape-shifters. For the most part, they saw their safety and well-being as a responsibility, but they had no illusion of a close friendship. From their perspective the shape-shifters were an ally and as such an acquaintance they were obliged to protect. However, the line of division that the shape-shifters guarded fiercely kept them forever in their minds as potential adversaries. They understood that Nessie did not share in this distinction. She had always been given free access onto Quileute land and was nearly regarded by them as a member of the pack. She ran with them frequently during the formative months of her life and reveled in their company whenever she was in the forest. The Cullen vampires knew that there was a close relationship between her and them, and had no ill feelings for it.

The Cullen vampires saw the break-up between Nessie and Jacob as a necessary step in her life, if she was to lead one without him. They were prepared to enforce this separation without regard to the pain it inflicted upon the shape-shifters. Nessie’s feelings on the matter were far more of a concern for them. They hung on to her every remark and decision and supported it without regard for where it led.

For the remainder of Nessie’s sophomore year, the Cullen vampires, minus Rosalie and Emmett, took up residence in distant locals where they could openly move about that community without the concern of being recognized. At the start of the next summer, Bella and Edward returned to the Olympic Peninsula with plans that encompassed Nessie.

“Where,” Nessie queried in a surprised tone?

“Wherever you like,” Edward responded quickly.

“We thought you might like to spend this summer someplace other than on the peninsula,” Bella enthusiastically supported with Emmett and Rosalie standing nearby nodding in agreement.

Nessie was excited by this offer, but she had no illusions about what had prompted this.

“Who’s going to be on the peninsula,” Nessie questioned all present?”

“Carlisle and Esme will be here,” Rosalie assured a second behind.

“Will I have time to take care of a few things here,” Nessie pondered to Bella?

“We thought we could take off today,” Bella announced cautiously. “But if you have plans, I guess we could hold off for a day or two.”

Their plan to spend the summer traveling with Nessie was motivated by a desire to distance her from Jacob and the shape-shifters in general. They were aware through communications with Nessie that none of the shape-shifters had responded to her calls. It was agreed upon by all of the Cullen vampires that an extension of their separation through the summer would be best for all concerned.

“Yeah, I think I would like to spend a few days on the peninsula.” Nessie spoke her reply gently. “I want to talk to Leah.”

“Leah will be here when you get back,” Emmett countered in a dismissive voice.

Nessie had just then returned from the University of California Berkley when she was ambushed with this by Bella, Edward, Rosalie and Emmett. She stood in the living-room of their home, pondering the offer as they looked on.

“It’s just that I want to know how Jacob is doing,” Nessie returned in an unsure voice.

“Honey, if there was anything wrong, I’m sure someone would have told you,” Rosalie remarked in a tone laced with worry.

“It’s not what they would tell me that I want to know,” Nessie sharply reacted. “It’s what they’re not telling me that I want to know.”

The Cullen vampires were unsure what the appropriate response was to this. They could see that Nessie’s feelings for Jacob were greater than they were given to believe by her past remarks on the subject. They each hesitated to ponder what reply they should give.

“Do you know something?” Nessie blasted her query into the silence between them in an alarmed tone.

“No,” Bella quickly answered back. “We haven’t heard anything. They haven’t been talking to us either.”

Nessie relaxed her posture a little in response to this report. A brief silence engulfed the group and then Emmett loudly filled it.

“Carlisle and Esme will be here in two days, so why don’t we make plans to leave then.”

“Okay,” Nessie eagerly agreed.

Rosalie, Bella and Edward agreed in turn and then the phone rang.

Rosalie walked over to it and examined the caller identification display. “It’s Alice and Jasper,” she reported a second before reaching down and activating the speakerphone. “Hi.”

_~~~~~Line Break~~~~~_

At the end of the last Christmas holiday season, Carlisle and Esme traveled north to commune with Eleazar, Carmen, Kate and Tanya. The Denali Coven maintained an isolated home on the outskirt of the National Park that their coven was named for. They relocated their home in this vicinity every ten to fifteen years and in between these times they frequently traveled abroad to protect their anonymity. The few people who knew of them thought the house they occupied was nothing more than a vacation home. This was a perception they actively endorsed. In reality the house served as a rally point for the coven. In essence this was the truth for all vampire covens that maintained a presence in the mortal world. The short lifespans and ever changing situations of humans made this an effective work around from either a ghostlike existence or a nomadic one.

Carlisle’s and Esme’s visits here were nearly regular occurrences. The two families intentionally staggered the times that they acquired new domiciles so that one could frequently visit the other during their transient period. Carlisle enjoyed the company of Eleazar immensely, as did Esme for Carmen’s. They would invariably spend the bulk of their times together trading in new information they acquired during their separation. The mortal’s penchant for growing intellectually, evolving socially and culturally, and reinventing themselves and the world around them made their domain a perpetual classroom for vampires. Carlisle’s and Eleazar’s eagerness to soak up this information was the foundation for their friendship. Esme, Carmen, Kate and Tanya usually spent their time exploring more diverting pursuits. Music, fashion, the trends of the times and the mortals who were shaping them was a common interest here. Carlisle and Esme could have spent a whole year hear amusing themselves, but their plan to spend the summer on the Olympic Peninsula would cut this visit short.

Alice and Jasper set off for Europe after the Christmas holiday season. The large collection of elegant and historical cities in Europe made this continent a popular haunt for them and vampires in general. The winter months made it all the more attractive to them. Even in the daylight hours they could often traverse the communities without the use of makeup. By the spring of the next year Alice and Jasper had settled into a cottage outside of Stockholm, Sweden, a day’s travel by car. It was a remote area that they had dwelled in twice before. The scenery, the myriad of lakes and rivers, and the wilderness made this a favorite place for them to escape to.

The cottage was a two bedroom wood frame structure. A covered porch in the front and patio in the back provided spectacular views of the surrounding countryside. The building sat near the top of a boulder strewn hill. A thin population of tall, straight, narrow spruce trees covered the hillside all about the cottage. The distant terrain was equally configured with hills and trees. The back porch looked out over a lake that was large enough to encompass twenty football fields.

Alice was in the middle of enjoying the view at the rear of the cottage when she suddenly became overcome by a vision. The impact of what she saw in her mind’s eye made her step back in shock. She paused just for a second to challenge with disbelief what she had seen, and then she turned and raced into the house. The vision was no lie. Alice knew she had to stop it, but she feared it was already too late.

“What is it,” Jasper queried?

Alice snatched up the phone that was on the end table next to him. An instant after she dialed out a call at near the speed of a blur. Jasper set down the book he was reading and rose to his feet in the blink of an eye. Alice’s demeanor told him that something was horribly wrong.

“It can’t be true,” Alice pleaded to her-self with a terrified expression. “I think something terrible has happened,” she reported to Jasper while impatiently waiting for her call to go through.

Half a dozen seconds passed before the ringing stopped on the other end. Alice listened for half a second to the voice coming through the phone. For the whole of this time she impatiently waited for the speaker to go silent so she could ask the question that she feared to hear the answer to.

“Is Bella there,” Alice desperately blurted into the phone?

On the other end of the call, Rosalie was momentarily startled by the tone of this inquiry. Bella, Edward, Emmett and Nessie were also surprised by the pitch of her voice and reoriented their stances to face the phone head-on.

“Yes, she’s right here,” Rosalie acknowledge in a questioning tone.

“Tell her to be careful. Tell her not to go anywhere alone.” Alice’s pleading instructions alarmed all who were present with her.

“What is it, Alice? What happens to Bella?” Edward quickly inquired as he, Bella, Emmett and Nessie closed in around the phone.

“I don’t know,” Alice responded into the mouthpiece with a confused inflection. “I can’t see Bella,” Alice continued. Her voice heavily laced with worry. “I see Edward. I see echoes of Nessie. I see everyone except Bella.”

Jasper moved his person to within an inch of Alice. He placed both hands upon her shoulders. Alice visibly relaxed under his touch.

“In my vision,” Alice spoke again after a pause, “Bella is dead.”


	6. War Drums

“Who, Alice,” Edward demanded loudly? “Who wants to kill Bella?”

“I don’t know.” Alice fumbled the words out. “I just know… that… it’s… going…” Alice’s speaking slowly trailed to a stop. Her thoughts suddenly became lost in a new vision.

“What are you seeing, Alice,” Edward forcefully challenged again?

“It _was_ going to happen soon, somewhere on the peninsula.” Alice continued to fumble her words out over the distraction of her visions. Three seconds later she continued her report with a new thought. “It’s gone.”

“The vision…? The vision is gone?” Edward queried an instant later with a desperate tone to his voice.

Edward was infuriated by this situation far more so than anyone else. He was not accustomed to waiting on words to be spoken to learn the details of one of Alice’s visions. He became even more annoyed by the need to question her to explain her words.

“She’s going to be okay, Edward,” a suddenly relieved Alice reassured. “The vision is gone. Bella is going to be okay.”

“So, this changed it?” Emmett asked no one in particular.

“Yes,” Alice responded through the speakerphone. “But to be safe, Bella, you need to get off that peninsula.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Bella adamantly asserted. “If someone is out to kill me than, I want to know who it is.”

“Bella…,” Edward sharply spoke.

Bella quickly cut him off with a counter response to Edward’s unspoken challenge. “I’m not going to spend the next hundred years looking over my shoulder.”

A few seconds of silence descended between them as all present, on either end of the phone line, pondered Bella’s decision.

“Are you sure this was supposed to happen on the peninsula?” Rosalie queried this from behind a ruffled brow and a look of suspicion on her face.

Nessie shared this look of suspicion mixed with an equal share of worry.

“Yes,” Alice answered with a word.

Edward’s thinking was masked behind his poker face expression. Emmett’s thinking came around to everyone else’s a step behind. He threw his hands up and stepped back as he pondered the thought that the others were considering.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Jasper monitored the conversation from Alice’s side of the phone connection. His vampire hearing picked up all that was being said on the far end. He studied Alice’s face for some clue of what she might have seen. After a few seconds of study he could discern no tell from her expression. He then elected to prompt her with a question.

“Do you think the shape-shifters could be after Bella?”

Alice had no response, but her silence was a powerful indictment. It took only a few seconds for all present to come to the realization that the Quileute shape-shifters were prime suspects for this premonition. Everyone knew that it was uncommon for Alice to have only a vision of the aftermath of an event that did harm to someone she cared deeply for. The only explanation for this was that the event itself was something she could not see. The Cullens knew that the only people on the peninsula that Alice could not see in her visions were Nessie and the shape-shifters.

“It can’t be the Quileute,” Nessie suddenly insisted. “They wouldn’t do that. I know they wouldn’t.”

“Honey, I know you don’t want to believe it,” Rosalie pleaded. “But shape-shifters take on more than just the appearance of the animal they acquire. They inherit their instincts and nature.”

“But they’re not dumb animals,” Nessie insisted. “They have human intelligence.”

“It’s a conflict,” Edward quickly corrected. “They’re human side is always battling their primitive nature.”

“It’s true, Nessie,” Alice continued through the phone connection. “When they lose their tempers, they’re just as wild as the wolves they mimic.”

“Yeah, just ask Emily,” Emmett tagged on behind.

The Cullen’s understanding of shape-shifters came from thousands of years of study passed along through the vampire grapevine. The Cullen vampires knew that shape-shifters could not turn themselves into inanimate objects. They also knew that shape-shifters could not vary the build or coloring of the animal they chose to mimic. It had been surmised by a vampire, less than two centuries back, that shape-shifters were simply de-evolving themselves into an earlier species of life on the evolutionary chain. The only part of them that remained human was the intellect that was there from the beginning.

“I still don’t believe it,” Nessie insisted. “There has to be another explanation.”

“Think about it,” Rosalie countered soberly. “The shape-shifters have been moody lately. We know this. They haven’t been speaking to us for months and Billy said their anger is focused on Edward and Bella.”

Nessie had trouble accepting this reasoning. Her mind struggled to find an argument to dispute it. Bella was also having trouble with this thinking, but for her acceptance was proving to be far less of a struggle.

“I’m sorry, Honey,” Bella softly spoke with a touch of her hand to Nessie’s arm. “We have to at least consider the possibility that Jacob is no longer our friend.

“I have to talk with him,” Nessie blurted out in a mildly distraught voice.

“No,” Edward, Bella, Rosalie, Emmett, Alice and Jasper yelled in unison.

Edward and Bella instinctively reached out and grasped Nessie firmly about each arm.

“No one crosses the treaty line,” Edward sternly continued.

“If the shape-shifters are on the warpath, then there will be blood for sure if one of us steps over that line.”

Emmett’s assertion had no effect on Nessie and she quickly countered with one of her own.

“That doesn’t apply to me.”

“We have to assume it applies to all of us now,” Rosalie argued back.

“I don’t think staying off their land is enough,” Jasper spoke up through the speakerphone. “You should all get off the peninsula.”

“I agree,” Alice insisted.

“No,” Bella countered an instant behind. “I’m not leaving my parents and my brother on this peninsula unprotected.”

Bella’s assertion threw the family into a state of confusion. No one had a quick solution to the dilemma they were then pondering. After a few seconds of thought Jasper inserted a conclusion he just came to.

“Okay, if none of you are leaving, then we’re coming to you.”

The silence in response to this declaration was in itself an agreement to the thinking.

“We should be there by the time Carlisle and Esme arrive,” Jasper advised a few seconds later.

“Please stay together,” Alice added on to the end.

Bella looked into the face of Nessie and responded in a tone as succinct as she could make it. “We will.”

In the evening of the next day, Carlisle and Esme returned to the peninsula. Rosalie called and advised them of Alice’s vision. This, in turn, hastened their arrival. The day they had planned to use for hunting was scuttled in favor of a direct and speedy transit to Clallam County, Washington. They raced into the Cullen family home with the decisiveness of a bullet.

“Has anything happened since yesterday,” Carlisle queried all present?

Edward, Bella, Emmett, Rosalie and Nessie intercepted them in the foyer of the house.

“No, nothing,” Rosalie reported.

“Alice?” Esme queried with a word.

“Not since the first call,” Bella responded to the implied question.

Edward studied Carlisle’s mind for information on his thinking. Emmett and Nessie waited on a vocal report of same.

“She must be in transit right now,” Carlisle pondered out the obvious.

“I don’t believe Jacob and the others would do this,” Nessie implored to Carlisle.

Carlisle perceived the anguish in Nessie’s face and stepped over to her before speaking.

“I know it’s hard to believe,” Carlisle spoke softly. “But it doesn’t have to be all of them. It could be just two or three of them. The shape-shifters always thought of us as a potential enemy.”

“You’re not going to hurt them,” Nessie questioned back with a pleading expression?

“No Sweetheart,” Carlisle promptly responded as he took her hands into his. “Not if we can avoid it.”

Esme quickly stepped over to Nessie with a look of concern on her face. She gently placed a hand on Nessie’s shoulder. Carlisle backed away to give room.

“Hey, this whole thing is probably about some chance encounter in the forest that went bad,” Esme reassured with a forced smile. “Now that we know about this we can take precautions to prevent it.”

Nessie accepted Esme’s support with a forced smile of her own. Emmett was not equally gratified by this idea and said so two seconds later.

“So, aren’t we going to confront them?”

Emmett’s words were spoken with ferocity behind them. All eyes turned to him in response.

“Emmett is right,” Rosalie quickly supported. “We can’t just keep dancing around these wolves, not if we’re going to maintain a presence here. We need to resolve this one way or the other, now.”

Carlisle gave Rosalie’s and Emmett’s expression a quick study before responding to their words.

“The shape-shifters are our friends and allies,” he instructed calmly. “We need to do whatever we can to avoid a conflict with them.”

“That was yesterday,” Emmett challenged back. “I think someone needs to communicate to them that our side of the boundary is now off limits to them.”

“I agree,” Rosalie rifled in sternly.

“Something like that will definitely provoke the entire pack,” Bella retorted with equal tenacity.

Edward’s silence with regards to this question was suddenly noticed by all within the room. Their eyes favored his location. Edward ignored this attention and kept his stare fixed onto Carlisle. He, in turn, read this as a deference to him.

“We shouldn’t worry about this now,” Carlisle instructed all present. “Alice and Jasper are not here to share their thoughts.”

“Alice can’t see anything when it comes to those wolves,” Rosalie quickly pointed out. “What is she going to tell us that we don’t already know?”

“Just the same, I want them here before making decisions about what to do.”

Carlisle’s resolution was the last word on the subject for this assembly. It was, however, a perennial topic of conversation, over the course of the day, between a varied two and three of the family.

“You agree with Aunt Rose, don’t you, Dad?”

Nessie cornered Edward in the kitchen for the purpose of putting this question to him. Bella followed them there in anticipation of the topic of their discussion.

“If it comes down to a choice between the safety of you and your mother against them, then there is no choice.”

Edward’s reply was sobering and unwavering. Nessie was momentarily startled by this answer, despite the fact she already knew what it would be. Bella moved in on the discussion from behind Nessie. She looked to Nessie with concern and caught her attention.

“I think we need to give this some time to blow over, before we do something that we won’t be able to come back from.” Bella gently suggested this as she looked back and forth between her daughter and her husband

Relieved to hear these words, Nessie nodded her head in agreement as she pushed out a smile. Edward was not inclined to be that amenable.

“If Alice produces one word of bad news, then the time is up.”

Edward stared into Bella’s eyes to give weight to his stern warning. Four seconds later, he abandoned this discussion and sought solitude for his thoughts elsewhere.

Alice and Jasper arrived at the Cullen family home late that evening. All were there in waiting for them, impatient for news from Alice.

“Have there been any new visions?” Carlisle queried Alice the instant she became settled in the living-room.

“No, nothing,” Alice reported without hesitation. “But, we shouldn’t be here. I can’t see the wolves. I can only see the aftermath of anything they do.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying,” Emmett spoke out loudly. “We need to act first. We need to make something happen now while we’re prepared for it.”

“They’re not rabid animals to be disposed of,” Bella argued back.

“Neither are we,” Rosalie retorted an instant behind.

Nessie kept an eye on Edward for some reaction to all that was being said. He had shown none to this point. He was too busy assimilating the thoughts behind the words being spoken.

“What about us?”

Carlisle’s sudden query to Alice redirected the conversation to her.

“That’s just it, I can’t see you or Esme or Bella or any of us when one of those shape-shifters is nearby,” Alice instructed in a plaintive voice.

“What about the aftermath of an event,” Carlisle corrected his query. “Have you had any visions that suggest something has happened that you didn’t see?”

“With Nessie here I can’t be sure of what I’m not seeing,” Alice insisted with finality. “This is why I think we should just leave.”

“I’m not leaving with my parents here,” Bella sternly countered. “You can go, but I’m staying.”

Everyone could see that Bella had directed her assertion at the whole family.

“They can leave too,” Emmett insisted.

Nessie followed this debate with growing worry. She continued to keep an eye on Edward. She knew that he would push the argument towards confrontation if she or Bella looked to be at risk. Jasper was following the debate from a tactical perspective, weighing the facts and factions in play.

“I won’t uproot my parents if I don’t have too,” Bella insisted.

Nearly all within the family were confused about how to react or what to suggest. Suddenly Edward’s attention swung to Jasper who had just then formulated an idea he thought might work as a compromise.

“What about Charlie and Renee,” Jasper queried with a turn of his head to Alice? “What do you see in their future?

Alice went silent for a moment as she searched through her memories.

“Nothing, their fine,” Alice reported after five seconds of thought.

Carlisle perked up in response to this. A new question came to his mind. “So, we can use them as a gauge?”

“Yes,” Alice responded with a hint of enthusiasm. “I see them clearly. Nothing changes for your parents, Bella, at least not for the next five or six days.”

“So, all you have to do is monitor Charlie and Renee,” Esme questioned hopefully?

“Yes,” I think that’ll work,” Alice answered with a nod in the affirmative.

“To make sure it works, I think we should make a pact to call them should anything happen to any of us.” Jasper added this suggestion behind Alice’s affirmation.

Bella was quick to accept this idea. Nessie was instantly relieved by Edward’s look of approval. Rosalie and Emmett grudgingly surrendered with a nod of acquiescence. Carlisle and Esme were gratified by the family’s agreement. Jasper visually tabulated everyone’s concurrence and added his on to the end, “okay.”

“So, how long do we sit here and do nothing?” Emmett queried Carlisle after a pause.

“Let’s take it a day at a time for now.”


	7. Escalating Tensions

That summer, Nessie did not do any traveling off the peninsula with her parents. The Cullens decided to stay together in Clallam County, Washington. The family of vampires did not want to leave the area unguarded by at least one or more of their number. Because of the recent development with the shape-shifters, they elected not to be less than full strength on the peninsula for the foreseeable future.

Nessie spent the summer with her friends from Forks High School when she was not at home with family. She was under strict orders from her vampire relations not to travel onto the Quileute Reservation. This instruction was easy enough for her to comply with under the circumstances. The Cullen vampires promised to come after her if she did travel there. Nessie knew that this act would be a serious breach of the treaty between the two sides and that a confrontation would have been inevitable. This was something she desperately did not want to happen. Subsequently, she kept clear of the reservation with a passion. The thought of her vampire relations and the shape-shifters fighting terrified her.

Nessie did see several of the shape-shifters in the town of Forks and Port Angeles over the summer. She eagerly attempted to approach them, but her beckon was rudely rebuked each time. As this trend progressed, Nessie became increasingly convinced that the shape-shifters had become collectively hostile towards her. This thought was only half as hard to bear as the thinking that Jacob shared this enmity. She attempted on several occasions to contact him by phone. Each time the call either went unanswered or was disconnected shortly after she spoke. Even Billy, who did not share in this animosity towards her, was obliged to hang up after Jacob refused to take the call. It was, for the most part, an unpleasant summer for Nessie. She returned to Berkley, in the fall, depressed and afraid of what might happen on the peninsula while she was away.

Over the summer, Charlie and Renee had become increasingly alarmed by the elevated tension between the Cullens and the Quileute. Nessie’s repeated inquiries to them about their contact with Jacob signaled a loss of communication between the two. They too were also surprised by Jacob’s absence from them. The big brother bond that had developed between he and Phillip had made them accustomed to regular visits from Jacob. Billy’s report to Charlie and Renee that all was not well among the shape-shifters supported their suspicion that something was amiss. Concerned about the situation, they made an earnest effort to extract from Bella the truth behind this strange new behavior.

“There’s nothing happening for you to be concerned about,” Bella pleaded to her parents.

“Come on Bells,” Charlie challenged back. “There’s got to be something going on here. You and those wolves are not talking to each other and neither are Nessie and Jacob.”

“Feelings are a little raw right now,” Bella carefully stated. “But this will pass.”

“I saw Nessie the other day and she didn’t seem to share your conviction on this,” Renee bluntly contradicted. ”I know her almost as well as I know you, Bella. There’s something you’re not telling us.”

“Mom, I might be down playing it a little, but you know everything I know. Nessie and Jacob have broken up and it has created a bit of a schism between us and them.” Bella laced these words with a hint of exasperation and finality.

“I’m not buying it, Bells,” Charlie immediately retorted. “You’re not even supposed to be here right now. The whole Cullen clan is on the peninsula. Now that’s got to mean something.”

“Yes, Dad, it means we’re all concerned for Nessie and that we’re here to support her.” There was much more than a hint of exasperation in these words.

Charlie and Renee grudgingly accepted this explanation because they had no contradictory information to dispute it. They went back to their home and their lives with only the feeling that the other shoe had yet to drop.

The Cullen vampires spent the summer diligently monitoring the forest about their home and the visions coming to Alice. The absence of any significant activity in either began to wear on their patience. By summer’s end they were all hoping for something to happen so that they could affect some kind of resolution. Eventually they came to an agreement to force a reaction from the shape-shifters after Nessie had returned to school. This they did not tell her.

Three weeks into Nessie’s junior year of college, the Olympic Coven contacted Billy Black by phone. They requested a meeting with the shape-shifters. The request was relayed to Sam Uley. He, in turn, declined the request with the remark, “we have nothing to say to the Cullens.” Not satisfied with this reply, Carlisle sent this message to Sam via Billy. _We are moving towards a conflict that I can see no way to avoid without a dialogue. If you value the lives of your pack you will meet us, noon tomorrow, at the clearing where we stood together against the Volturi._ Sam gave no answer to this summons. He saw no need for there to be one. He had every intention of being at the clearing, but avoiding a conflict would not be his design for going.

The entire pack of Quileute shape-shifters were confused and angered by the tone of Carlisle’s summon. They suspected their shunning of the Cullen family was motivating this request. What was not expected was the level of hostility within their message, and it was greatly resented. They needed little encouragement for a fight with the Cullens. A perpetual foul mood since the events of the last Christmas, ten months earlier, made them quick to anger about anything, the Cullens most of all. Jacob’s emotional wound renewed their enmity towards the Cullens each time they shared his thoughts. Only a fraction of this anger carried over into their human form, but this was still enough to maintain a general vexed sensitivity for the family of vampires. This veiled threat from the Cullens suddenly had the pack spoiling for a fight.

The next morning the Cullens stood in readiness for this day’s event. All were anxious to confront the shape-shifters. Emmett and Rosalie were leading this charge. Four months of wondering if or when the shape-shifters might attack one or all of them made them ready for a showdown. Alice was equally infuriated. Blind spots in her vision were always an annoyance to Alice, but she had learned to live with them so long as the originator was someone she cared for or perceived inoffensive. The Quileute shape-shifter no longer maintained either of those distinctions with her. If she had to be near the shape-shifting wolf-men, she would rather be fighting them, than hiding from them. Esme, too, was tired of wondering who might be lurking in the forest. She, like the rest of her vampire family, considered the shape-shifters a minor threat on the whole, but this was an opinion she suspected they did not appreciate. The thought of them waiting in ambush to attack someone she loved had her ready to give the shape-shifters and education regarding the pecking order on this peninsula. Edward’s anger was cold and quiet. He simply wanted to find the shape-shifter that dared to think of doing harm to Bella and rip his heart out.

Carlisle was looking forward to this day as well. The prolonged silence from the shape-shifters coupled with Alice’s vision had him convinced that the only solution was a forced encounter. It was his hope to avoid a fight. His respect for the shape-shifters and their long history as guardians of their people made him reluctant to harm them under most circumstances. It was, however, their embittered stance, their refusal to speak with them and their potential for harm to his family that pushed Carlisle to the edge of his patience. After four months of waiting, Carlisle was no longer prepared to stay in a defensive huddle against a threat that refused to come. Bella’s decision not to transplant her parents and brother to a new location took the only other option off the table. In his mind the time had come for the shape-shifters to either listen to reason or take their best shot.

Bella was not as combative about the situation as the rest of her vampire family. She had grown to perceive the shape-shifters as whining little children who were having a temper tantrum. This by itself was of no concern to her, but the inconvenience this was causing had come to annoy her immensely. She did not care for the idea of having to rearrange the lives of her parents and her brother around a pack of pouting children. She had to believe that an amicable relationship between them could be restored if they would only talk to them. However, if talking failed, she was prepared to entertain their grievance in whichever format the shape-shifters had in mind.

On the morning of the next day, the Cullens made no special preparations for the meeting to come. They had nothing to do but wait for the time to be right for them to set out for the clearing where they stood side by side with the shape-shifters against Aro and Caius. This location was chosen by design. Carlisle wanted to remind the shape-shifters of their history as allies and friends. It was his hope that this would aid him in suppressing the ill feelings they obviously had for the Cullens at this time.

There was no nervous fidgeting. There were signs of tension. For the Cullens, as was true for all vampires, emotions were usually overpowered by their acute and powerful intellects. They seldom slowed down their thoughts to give consequence to these distractions. The Cullens went about their morning as if nothing of importance was to occur later this day. Thirty minutes before noon, the Cullen family of vampires gathered in front of the house before streaking off into the forest. They were on course and on pace for their rendezvous with the Quileute shape-shifters.

The Cullens had no guarantee that Sam and his pack would be at the clearing. They were going on the assumption that they would be there, despite their non-response. All were of the belief that the wolf-man pack would rise to the challenge of Carlisle’s implied ultimatum. There were varied hopes between them with regards to the manner of their reaction. Nonetheless all were on their guard for an all-out attack.

It was a bright day despite the overcast sky. The clouds above seemingly glowed as if they were soft white light bulbs. A million pin holes in the forest canopy permitted the sun’s rays to beam through and illuminate the landscape beneath. The forest was a maze of shadows and light. The Cullens raced through this scene in a tight line. The still air erupted into a turbulent wake behind their run. The nearby underbrush was tossed about violently by the aftermath of their passage.

The Cullen family of vampires came upon the clearing at five minutes before noon. They promptly walked out onto the open field and formed up into a line near to the middle of the clearing. Each member of the family stood two arm’s lengths away from the person next to them, just far enough apart to touch finger tips with another. The clearing and the forest around it was quiet. The faint sound of grass rustling beneath the gentle breeze across the clearing was loud enough to impact upon the silence. The trees in the distance stood nearly like statues. It took a deliberate study of one of them to note a gentle sway against a soft wind. The Cullens detected no smell of the shape-shifters. They knew from this that they had not been in this field before them nor were they nearby at present. Edward gave no report of thoughts in the vicinity. The family knew from experience that he would have informed them if anyone was nearby. Undaunted, the Cullens stood their ground and settled in for what they anticipated to be a short wait.

Four minutes later, Edward got his first read on the minds of the shape-shifters. He could tell by the vague sensation of thought that they were still far off, but they were also moving fast.

“They’re coming,” Edward called out to the family.

“How many,” Jasper queried back?

“All of them,” Edward responded a second behind.

“Good,” Emmett bellowed forcefully. “We won’t have to go looking for any of them.”

“Don’t get over anxious,” Carlisle instructed loudly. “We’re here to talk if we can.”

“You talk Carlisle,” Rosalie seethed. “Just let me know when the talking is over.”

Carlisle allowed Rosalie’s retort to go unanswered. He did not want to admonish anyone and possibly anger them anymore than they were. He knew that all would hold their stations until given cause or instructions to do otherwise.

“What’s their intention,” Carlisle queried Edward five seconds later?

Edward continued to study the distant tree line as he filtered through the shape-shifters thoughts and pondered out his reply.

“They’re angry, all of them, but I don’t know what their plans are yet.” Edward studied the tree line for a few seconds more before speaking again. “They know we’re here. They smelled us coming twenty minutes back.”

“Mutts,” Alice spat out with disgust.

“Sam’s wondering what our plans are,” Edward spoke up a second behind Alice. “Nearly all of them are hoping that we’ve come here for a fight.”

“Good,” Emmett yelled out his support. “We’re on the same page.”

“Will they talk with us,” Carlisle called out to Edward?

“They might,” Edward answered back. “If Jacob can hold the line.”

“Jacob?” Bella queried with a surprised inflection.

Rosalie was annoyed, nearly beyond her patience, with the talk about talking. She roared into the conversation with the question that was most on her mind. “When will they be here?”

“They’re here now,” Edward responded calmly.

Across the clearing, beneath the line of trees, all was still. The Cullen family of vampires began to study the darkness beneath this canopy with greater scrutiny. A dozen seconds into this study, a figure took shape from beneath the line of trees. A large, black, wolf slowly emerged from the shadows with carefully measured steps. He had not fully cleared the dark of the forest when a long line of wolf-men suddenly took shape to either side of him. Each of them moved with the slow approach of the black wolf-man in the middle. All eyes across the way were focused on the Cullens. Heads were slightly lowered, but not a sound was being vocalized from any of them. Their pace never quickened. Their stride never varied. The Cullens counted nineteen massive wolf-men moving at an interminably slow walk. Their line held straight and unbending. Nearly a minute into this procession, the wolf-men came to stop near to the middle of the clearing. Five yards distance was all that was left between them. As if on cue, each of the wolf-men immediately crouched a bit in their stance, lowered their heads an inch and, in unison, rumbled out a chorus of growls.


	8. The Confrontation

Emmett was encouraged by the display of ferocity in the shapeshifters. He fidgeted in his stance with anxious approval for this thinking. Rosalie was equally eager to entertain this thought. She leaned forward and glared at the shapeshifters with all the malice she could configure in her expression. Alice, Jasper and Esme held their composure. There was no obvious evidence in their stance or expression that they were there to fight. Bella and Carlisle were the only two of the Cullens to examine the line of shapeshifters with looks of apprehension. For both, their only concern was that they might not be able to avoid a fight. Edward stared directly across from him, towards the nearest shape-shifter, as though he was looking through him. His posture was straight and relaxed. His expression was bland and frozen. Carlisle slowly scanned the line of shape shifters, back and forth, with a swing of his eyes and a slight turn of his head.

The wolf-men held their focuses straight across to the Cullen nearest to them. The low rumble of their growl maintained a constant level. The hum of their combined growls sounded almost like a combustion engine on idle. Sam stood in a fixed stance across from Carlisle and impatiently waited for the lead vampire to speak whatever words he came to say. As much as he would have liked to rip this vampire’s throat out, Sam was loathed to go against the feelings of Jacob. Even in his wolf form he could understand that it was Jacob’s anger that was fueling his own. He also knew that it was Jacob’s presence that was making him equally reluctant to harm any member of Nessie’s family. It was this strong regard for Nessie, and subsequently her family, that was keeping Sam in check. He in turn was doing the same to the pack.

Across the way, Edward was reading this tenuous affiliation with fascination. In his own mind he was ready to shut down the thought processes of each of the shapeshifters, but his perception of their collective minds told him that the peace would hold, for the short term, if he took action to reinforce it.

“We didn’t come here to fight,” Edward spoke out into the silence between the two lines.

The Cullens were startled by Edward’s lead into this meeting. All, but Emmett and Rosalie, were relieved to hear him reach out to the wolf-men. They knew that Edward would not have done so if he had not read in their thoughts a willingness to do the same. Carlisle looked to Edward for visual conformation of this deduction. Edward immediately pulled back from his bland expression, looked back to Carlisle with a slight turn of his head and gave him the cue that he needed.

“We know that the situation between Nessie and Jacob has created some ill will between us,” Carlisle advised gently. “But, it is our hope that we can work pass this to mend our friendship.”

Carlisle’s carefully articulated words had no visible effect on the wolf-men. They continued to hold their line, their postures and their growls.

“They don’t care what we want,” Edward reported after a brief pause. “They’re dealing with the situation in their own way.”

Carlisle paused for a moment to be startled by this reply. This was all the time Rosalie needed to vocalize her reaction with a heavy dose of incredulity.

“This, this is your way, lurking around in the forest and sulking?”

Rosalie’s words, and more importantly, the tenor of them, had a visible and audible effect on the shapeshifters. The attention of the wolf-men focused onto her as the level of their growl intensified. Alarmed by this, Carlisle quickly spoke up in a manner and in words designed to bring the attentions of the wolf-men back onto him, with less acrimony.

“We would like to help you. We value our friendship and we want to do everything we can to protect it.”

As all of the shape-shifter’s eyes turned to Carlisle, the level of their growls immediately dropped down to where it was before.

“They want us to leave them alone,” Edward reported almost immediately after Carlisle spoke. “That’s how we can help,” Edward continued a second later.

“Well, that’s not working,” Alice insisted in a strident tone.

Bella overlapped the end of Alice’s remark with an earnest offering. “Jacob, we just want to help.”

There was a pause of silence from the Cullens as all waited on Edward’s read of the shape-shifter’s thoughts.

“They’re saying this is not helping,” Edward reported with a confused inflection. “They’re protecting Jacob,” Edward continued a second later. He then paused again to apprehend the shape-shifter’s thoughts. Still mildly confused, Edward continued his report. “They’re trying to keep us and Nessie out of their thoughts.”

“How does that help Jacob,” Esme queried Edward with a perplexed expression?

“They’re trying to help him fight the imprint,” Edward promptly answered.

“Can they do that,” Bella queried with and inflection of curiosity?

“It’s been done before,” Edward answered back as he studied the wolf-men. “But it’s a lengthy process and it has never been one-hundred percent effective.”

“Who cares what they’re trying to do if we can’t trust them with our backs turned” Emmett bellowed out?

Once again the growls of the shapeshifters intensified in volume as they looked to Emmett. He, in turn, crouched in his stance in anticipation of a violent response. Rosalie followed his lead and configured herself likewise. Carlisle was momentarily at a loss for words. He knew that Emmett’s assertion had merit and that it was the underlying problem that brought them there. He knew that this concern had to be addressed. His mind quickly began searching for a way of expressing this in a less confrontational tone. Suddenly, before he could assemble the words, Edward spoke out in a questioning tone.

“They don’t know what we’re talking about.”

“Of course they don’t,” Jasper promptly corrected. “It never happened. They don’t know what they almost did.”

Jasper’s assertion only made the shapeshifters growl in his direction. Edward quickly read the thoughts of the wolf-men and responded to the question he found there.

“At the beginning of the summer, Alice saw a vision of Bella on the peninsula, dead.”

Edward paused a second to read the thinking of the wolf-men. The other members of the Cullen family looked to him so that they could monitor this, half verbal, half telepathic conversation.

“It had to be you,” Edward mildly insisted.

The wolf-men growled a louder as they locked their attentions onto Edward. He in turn scanned the line of shapeshifters for two seconds before responding to their unspoken thoughts.

“It had to be you,” Edward insisted with greater force. “Alice couldn’t see the event, only the aftermath.”

The growls of the shapeshifters grew even louder and were, for the first time, intertwined with snarls and bared teeth.

Edward studied the shapeshifters with nearly a look of astonishment. He cared nothing for the intensity of their anger. It was the thinking behind it that was perplexing him.

“What is it,” Carlisle questioned in response to Edward’s stunned expression? He was eager to know what was being said.

“It wasn’t them,” Edward answered in a soft and bewildered tone.

“That’s what they would say,” Emmett argued loudly.

The wolf-men turned their snarls and growls in Emmett’s direction. Carlisle continued to study Edward with a pondering expression. The rest of the Cullens were equally confused. They too looked to Edward for an explanation. He, in turn, obliged them with a quick response to Emmett’s assertion.

“No, it’s not in their thoughts. It’s not in their memories. The only thing they have ever been trying to do is avoid us. I’m not detecting any thoughts of malice in their memories.”

“Maybe it was an accidental encounter gone, bad,” Jasper suggested for affect.

“No,” Edward quickly corrected. “Jacob, we’re all under the protection of Jacob. They wouldn’t do that because it would hurt Nessie, and Jacob loves Nessie.”

Suddenly the entire family understood and was stunned by the comprehension. The wolf-men continued to snarl and growl at the now penitent expressions on all the Cullens. Half a dozen seconds went by before anyone thought to ask the next question.

“Then who was it,” Rosalie pondered out loud.

The Cullen family looked about themselves with baffled expressions as they considered this question. The wolf-men discontinued their snarls and tone down their growling in reaction to their introspection. Shortly, a thought from one of the shapeshifters caught Edward’s attention. He turned his focus onto him quickly and then roared out a question.

“What vampire?”

The whole of Edward’s family turned towards him with shocked expressions. To their knowledge there had not been a stray vampire on the peninsula for more than three years. The Cullens had grown accustomed to the idea that all vampires knew of their claim to this territory and how jealously they protected it. The idea that an unknown vampire ventured onto the peninsula unannounced was, very, unexpected. The thought that this vampire may have meant to do harm to Bella and still went unseen by Alice was mind boggling.

“That’s not possible,” Alice suddenly insisted. “I would have seen a vampire attacking Bella.”

“The wolves say that a vampire was moving about on the peninsula between March and June of this year.” Edward softly reported with a look of incredulity.

“This is a lie,” Rosalie challenged with venom. “They’re making this up to protect themselves.”

The wolf-men growled a little louder in Rosalie’s direction.

“They’re telling the truth,” Edward contradicted as he stared into empty space. “I see it in their memories. A vampire was here… a new vampire that had never been here before… but he’s gone now.”

That revelation set the Cullen family aback. All among their number were lost in contemplation with regards to the identity of this vampire. It did not take long for the whole of them to come to the same conclusion.

“The Patagonian?” Bella questioned out what the others were thinking.

“I can’t see him or her,” Alice mumbled to no one in particular.

The shapeshifters suddenly silenced their growls in response to the Cullen’s shocked expressions. They looked upon them with curiosity as the Cullens pondered this new information. Edward took note of a question in their thoughts a few seconds later and looked over to them with an answer.

“We had a fight with a Patagonian Coven of vampires a few years back. One of them got away. He was invisible to everyone except Bella.”

Edward expressed this report softly and with a dose of introspection. Alice’s remark that came behind it was strident and heavily laced with anger.

“You should have told us about this vampire,” Alice punctuated this remark with an accusing point.

The growl of the wolf-men returned at a low murmur. Carlisle turned to Alice and gave her a gesture with his hand to calm down. Even as he did this Rosalie began to vent her displeasure in an exasperated tone.

“I can’t believe this. We’ve been hunkered down for months, waiting for these flee magnets to do something and during all of this time a transient vampire was lurking about in the forest… and they knew about it… and didn’t tell us.”

The growl of the wolf-men grew a little louder. Carlisle momentarily gave thought to calling for calm amongst his family, but he elected to question the wolf-men instead. It was his hope that they had a good answer for their silence about this.

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

“We’re not talking to you,” Edward relayed a second behind Carlisle’s query.

“Damn it,” Emmett roared as he tossed his arms into the air.

The growl of the wolf-men spiked in time with Emmett’s display.

“The business of the Cullens is no longer our concern,” Edward continued to relay as he refocused his concentration onto the pack.

“You still should have told us,” Jasper asserted in a stern voice. “An unknown vampire on the peninsula is a possible threat to you too.”

The growl of the wolf-men spiked again in response to Jasper’s words.

“He didn’t come onto Quileute land and he took no human victims,” Edward reported on behalf of the wolf-men.

“That’s because he didn’t want to alert us that he’s here,” Jasper explained angrily.

“What did he look like,” Carlisle questioned in an inoffensive tone?

“They don’t know,” Edward began their reply. “They tracked his scent many times, but it always vanished before they got close enough to see him.”

“He was probably standing right in front of you, you dumb mutts,” Rosalie loudly scorned.

“Rosalie,” Esme sharply admonished.

The wolf-men snarled and bared teeth in response to Rosalie’s outburst.

“This vampire is visibly, audibly and aromatically undetectable to everyone except Bella, which is why he probably wants her dead,” Jasper instructed without regard for the angry temperament of the wolf-men.

The shapeshifters took argument with the accusation that they could not smell him. His scent was well tagged within their memories. They growled a second more before Edward responded to this thought in their heads.

“He’s only undetectable when you’re close to him.”

The growl of the wolf-men shortly trailed off into silence. The Cullens were also spent of vitriolic remarks. Carlisle shortly spoke into this silence with the hope of restoring the alliance they once had.

“We are sorry for thinking you could do this terrible thing and we hope you will forgive us. We value your partnership in the protection of this peninsula.”

There was a low rumble of disjointed growls as the shapeshifters began to back away in random movements. Three seconds into this disassembly the pack suddenly stopped and looked back at Jacob standing across from Edward. The two were locked into stares with each other. The Cullens quickly took note of the attention of the pack onto them.

“No,” Edward began his response to Jacob’s telepathic question. “I don’t know if Nessie is in danger.”

The two of them stood there for three seconds more before Edward spoke again.

“Thank you, Jacob.”

The large brown hued wolf-man turned and walked away in cue with the pack.

“What did he say,” Bella softly queried Edward on behalf of the whole family.

“He said that they will help us track the Ghost Walker.”


	9. Track of the Predator

A cold wind whipped between the trees in an endless series of rapid and erratic gusts. The sound of it disrupted the usual silence of the night with its whistling and roaring as it tumbled over the landscape and through the forest. The leafless trees oscillated beneath this onslaught. Above this, the overcast was thick and dark. A quarter-moon brightened a small segment of this ceiling. Dim glow clouds illuminated this picture like a gray smudge on an all-black canvas. The forest below this was bathed in the shadow of this cloak. The white of the snow, that covered the ground, was virtually hidden from view to mortal eyes. The forest outside of Forks, Washington, appeared to be a barren landscape. The only evidence of life, were the trees that stood like the skeletons of something that once lived.

_I know that smell._

A thought in the mind of Cody was tickled into existence by a faint scent that washed in on a gust of wind. He came to a stop in his tracks and shoved his snout up into the air to catch a better sample. The smell was brief, and it flew away with the wind that carried it.

_That was familiar. Find it again._

Jared’s thinking reacted, in turn, to Cody’s consciousness ringing in his head. This hint of a scent briefly registered in his brain as well and then flew away like a tease. The impression of it danced on the edge of a memory, but his location inside the Quileute Reservation frustrated any attempt by him to reacquire the smell on his own. He and Cody were thirty miles distant from each other.

Walter was less than twenty yards away from Cody when this vaguely familiar scent registered in their collective consciousness. He immediately turned back towards his companion in response to his finding. Walter moved at a slow walk as he carefully sampled the air. He did not want to miss it should it pass his way.

_There it is. I smell it._

Cody’s thinking reverberated into this communal consciousness. Still sniffing the air, he estimated that the scent was distant from his location. _It’s gone again,_ he pondered a second after. Despite this loss, the second sample confirmed the name of the source in the collective memories of all present. _The Ghost Walker,_ Cody, Walter, Jared, Embry, Seth and Aaron roared into their thoughts all at once.

_Find him,_ Embry instructed with a thought.

Even as he thought this, Cody and Walter were in pursuit of a scent that came and went with a gust of the wind. The two wolf-men padded out in slightly diverging directions with their snouts turned up to the air. This was a tactic commonly used by the shape-shifters to increase their chances of finding a trail. Three minutes later the two wolf-men were two-hundred yards apart, and were quickly losing hope of finding the scent again. Suddenly, another smell of the Ghost Walker spilled across Walter’s person. The physical residue of his scent within his snout provided confirmation of the mental impression that had been guiding him up until then. The scent was stronger here and it persisted despite the buffeting winds. Cody spun around in reaction to Walter’s find and sprinted to his location at near to his best speed. Upon his arrival, thirty seconds later, Cody got an immediate report of a smell from the Ghost Walker’s person. The stench of the vampire was strong enough to track from there. He and Walter quickly set off at a sprint into the head wind that smelled of vampire.

Seth and Aaron were already racing at their best speeds to Cody’s and Walter’s location. They were at the far side of their patrol sector, relative to Cody and Walter, when they first noted the Ghost Walker’s scent in Cody’s mind. Even at their top speed they estimated a ten minute run to the location where the scent was first discovered. The ankle deep snow was hampering their efforts a little, but not enough to have a noticeable effect on their time.

On the Quileute reservation the shape-shifters, in human form at this time, were being roused from their slumber by the calls of Embry and Jared. Those that were too distant to hear their howls were contacted, by phone, by those who were not. In twenty minutes time, the entire compliment of the Quileute shape-shifters was bounding through the forest on the hunt for the Ghost Walker.

The Quileute were motivated, to a small extent, by Jacob’s need to protect Nessie. The Ghost Walker’s hostile intentions towards Bella made him a possible threat to her and that was enough to warrant his death. The primary motivation, however, was simply the sport of the event. For most within the pack this was a chance to do the one thing that most occupied their dreams, hunt and kill a vampire.

Cody and Walter ran a zigzag pattern through the forest in pursuit of an odor that was being tossed about by the gusting winds like a beach ball. It took them eight minutes to follow the airborne scent to a physical trail. Sliding to a stop, they nearly ran by it. The two giant wolf-men immediately thrust their snouts towards the ground and sniffed the impacted snow. The disturbed ground was obviously trampled upon by a single traveler. The scent lingering about the foot prints registered in their minds as the Ghost Walker. Cody and Walter matched the direction of the prints with the airborne scent and then raced off down the trail at their top speeds.

_Cody, Walter, wait for us._ Sam Uley’s thinking registered within their thoughts.

_He’s near,_ Cody answered back in his mind. _The scent grows stronger by the second. His pace is slow, judging from his tracks. We can be on him before he knows we’re there._

Walter and Cody read from the Ghost Walker’s tracks that he was running at less than half their speed.

_No,_ Sam responded back. _The wind keeps changing. He might catch your scent. Stay back so we can move in around him._

The Quileute wolf-man pack surmised the destination of the Ghost Walker the moment Cody and Walter got a fix on his scent. His prints in the snow provided them with the probable route. Seth and Aaron were already moving on an intercept course and were expected to get their first independent scent of the Ghost Walker within the next one to two minutes. Like Cody and Walter, they were instructed to stay down wind and out of sight of the vampire. The remainder of the pack was expected to be in the vicinity three to four minutes behind them. It was anticipated that the vampire would likely catch wind of them when the whole of the pack started maneuvering to circumnavigate him. By this time they trusted their superior speed and numbers would make escape impossible.

_I lost him,_ Walter reported in his thoughts with a startled inflection. _Me too,_ he just vanished, Cody blurted into his thoughts. The two wolf-men had stopped their pursuit and were sniffing about them for a new trail.

_What about the tracks,_ Sam queried the pair?

_His tracks, his scent, it’s all gone,_ Cody and Walter reported back.

The shape-shifters took the Cullen’s claims about this vampire with a heavy dose of disbelief. It was their suspicion that the tricks of this vampire worked better against other vampires than it would against them. They believed their sense of smell, sight and hearing was far too acute to be completely fooled by anyone. For them, an invisible vampire was simply an added amusement to the chase.

More than the loss of the vampire’s scent, Walter and Cody were thoroughly confused by the absence of his tracks. It appeared to them as if the trail had somehow been lifted out of the snow.

_Stay where you are. We’re coming._

Walter and Cody reluctantly complied with Sam’s instruction. They both suspected that the Ghost Walker was nearby and was probably getting a read on their scent. The changing winds made it impossible for them to stay downwind of the vampire. Stealth was a matter of distance in this environment and they suspected, based on the reported reach of this vampire’s invisibility glamour, they were well within range of his sense of smell. The instincts of the two shape-shifters were to race forward and engage the vampire before he could slip away.

_He must have slowed so that he could project his glamour._ Jacob pondered into his thoughts.

_Why would he do that,_ a dozen minds queried all at once?

All of the shape-shifters believed that the destination of the Ghost Walker was the Cullen home. Considering his distance from the house, slowing down did not make sense to any of them. Even Jacob was hard pressed to make sense of this. The shape-shifters were accustomed to the limits of a vampire’s sense of smell. Years of shadowing them had made them experts at the task. Because of this they gave no thought to the idea that the Ghost Walker had detected them before stopping. They considered it equally unlikely that he had detected someone else. By their read of the terrain, no one else was in range of the vampire’s sense of smell. It did not take long for several of the shape-shifters to latch-on to the only other possibility left, Edward. The mind reading vampire could hear the thoughts of others over a large distance. The Ghost Walker was likely shielding himself from this intrusion.

_He’s in Cullen territory now. He’s hiding himself from the mind reader._

A chorus of thoughts similar to this one erupted into the collective consciousness of the shape-shifters. An instant after, Walter and Cody made an announcement within their thoughts.

_His trail, it’s back._

The two large wolf-men could once again see the physical trail of the Ghost Walker’s path and smell his scent. They took note, as well, that the scent was now moving away from the Cullen home.

_You got too close. He picked up your scent,_ half a dozen thoughts like this exploded into the group consciousness.

The shape-shifters now knew that trapping the vampire was no longer possible. Pursuit and capture was now the game and preferably before he reached a river. Should that happen their only recourse would be to wait for him on land and hope they found his trail again. This, however, was the lesser of two evils. If the vampire reached the ocean or an inlet there would be nothing they could do. There was one good to come out of this from the shape-shifter’s perspective. The Ghost Walker could not extend his glamour of invisibility while running at full speed and if he slowed to do so they would have him for sure.

_~~~~~Line Break~~~~~_

This was Ambrose Pennington’s third excursion onto the Olympic Peninsula. The territory of the Olympic Coven had become an area of fascination for him. This was due to one factor. It was the home of the only being he knew of that could see him when his invisibility glamour was extended. This ability of the vampire, Bella Cullen, was a gnawing irritation to him. Even when he pushed it aside and found something new to distract him, it always returned to aggravate him. The very thought of her generated an unsettling tremor within him. The feeling reminded him of his days as a human on the streets of London. This sensation regularly dredged up memories of fear and a want to curl up in a corner and hide. Each time this happened he would shortly shake off the sensation and grow angry for having to relive it. It was after a year of enduring this that Ambrose came to the conclusion that he could no longer suffer Bella Cullen to live.

During his first visit to the Olympic Peninsula, the novice vampire was nowhere to be found. The adventure, however, was not without its benefits. He learned that he could move about the other members of the coven, undetected, as easily as he could any other vampire he knew of. This gave him the confidence to return for a second visit nearly a year later. During this visit he found, at first, no evidence of Bella Cullen. Shortly into the second half of this sojourn onto the peninsula he ran across her scent leading straight to the Cullen house. He followed it until he was in visual range of the home. Here he spent two days outside the home, savoring her scent like a dog slobbering after a piece of meat that was just beyond his reach. He left, only after, the entire coven returned to the peninsula. Evading four members of the coven simultaneously, he knew, would be difficult enough. Evading all eight, he suspected, would be impossible.

Ambrose returned for his third try after more than a year’s absence. For him, this time away served only to heighten his desire for Bella’s head. It was his hope that the Coven had dispersed once again and that Bella was still somewhere on the peninsula. He would try for her, if he could find her alone somewhere. Her death was a compulsion that was only being constrained by his fear of dying.

The winter season was not his favorite time for this kind of activity. This was because he could project his invisibility glamour only so far, beyond that his tracks in the snow gave him away. He chose to ignore this inconvenience for this trip simply because his eagerness to be after Bella devalued it into a minor consideration. There was also the fact that he had grown familiar with the peninsula and its occupants. He knew all of the possible hazards here and considered them to be minimal at best. The least among these, by his estimation, was the shape-shifting Indians that called the peninsula their home. He considered them a minor threat to him physically and he suspected they were aware of this too. This was the only explanation he could think of for their timid behavior.

In the past, the shape-shifters showed to Ambrose a knack for finding his trails and shadowing him from afar. This was due to the fact that they ranged across vast distances on a daily basis. The area they covered was far greater than what any vampire would regularly commit to. Ambrose understood that staying undetected from them for an extended period of time was nearly impossible. However, the giant wolf-men never appeared to be interested in taking him on in a fight. They never approached in numbers greater than two and they never gave chase when he gave them the slip. Their only interest, it seemed to him, was to monitor his movements. The fact that the Cullens made this their home inclined him to believe they were essentially inoffensive. Because of this, the sudden smell of two of them at his rear, while surprising, had no effect on this perception. It was the scent of two more, approaching from another direction that elevated his alarm greatly.

Ambrose instantly projected his invisibility glamour and set off, at a walk, in the direction that best separated him from the two groups of shape-shifters. After a minute of travel, he noted that the scent of the pair on his trail was falling away and that the scent of the second pair was still getting stronger. This information gave him reason to be confident. The second pair had yet to enter the envelope of his invisibility glamour. He knew that this would soon be the case and then they too would hold up to ponder the loss of his scent. Ambrose’s plan was simply to wait nearby with his glamour extended until the wolf-men lost interest and took off to range elsewhere. This was the normal pattern of behavior for the wolf-men. The only difference in this situation was the number of shape-shifters he was detecting and the fact that they were coming from different directions. Were it not for the fact that he knew better, he would think that the wolf-men were trying to trap him. That would explain the second pair coming towards him from a direction where he had no trail. Ambrose quickly relegated this idea to nonsense. The shape-shifters, he thought, would need walkie-talkies to coordinate such an act.

Ambrose had no knowledge of the inner workings of the shape-shifters. This was due exclusively to the fact that he cared nothing for the capabilities of these wolf-men beyond what he already knew. It seemed obvious to him that the only difference between them and any normal wolf was their size and their intellect. What more was there to know that would have any value to him? This opinion of the shape-shifters was, up until a minute further, unchallenged. The sudden scent of a dozen or more shape-shifters converging on his location, from still a third direction gave him cause to reconsider. The realization that they were, indeed, hunting him and in great numbers, was terrifying to Ambrose. It took him little more than a second to awaken from the shock, drop his invisibility glamour and race away from all three groups of wolf-men at the best speed he had ever produced.

The swirling winds made it next to impossible for Ambrose to keep track of the wolf-men while running at full speed. He considered coming to a stop to sample the air for their scent, but a second thought quickly dispelled that idea. He knew that if the wolf-men were still pursuing then they were less than a minute away from being on top of him.

_Keep running. Their scent will catch up if they’re still coming,_ Ambrose repeated in his thoughts.

Ambrose maintained a steady course for the nearest river, half expecting, half hoping that this was all for nothing. The idea that they might be pursuing him was still favored in his thoughts as a mistake. _Their presence in my vicinity, in these numbers must be a coincidence,_ Ambrose pondered in his thoughts. Thirty seconds later his resistance was shattered for good. The scent of the wolf-men returned and it was approaching from multiple directions.

Ambrose dared not to stop, or even slow down to deploy his glamour of invisibility. He did not want to lose the distance between the wolf-men and he. The safety of the river was far more reassuring and he raced on towards it without thought to concealing his movement. With each passing second the scent of the wolf-men grew stronger, as did their number. The swirling winds revealed that they were coming from nearly a semicircle of directions in his rear and they were close. Ambrose’s fear increased in pace with their approach.

_I’m not going to make it. I’m not going to make it;_ Ambrose began to repeat in his thoughts. His growing anxiety was tempting him to fall back on that which he did best, hide. He was seconds away from abandoning his run when the smell of the river rushed in like a flood. He raced on with renewed determination, even as the sound of the wolf-men sprinting behind began to sound in his ears. Twenty seconds later the river was twenty yards away, at the bottom of a shallow embankment. Ambrose jumped head first, from the tree-line of the forest, thirty yards into the river. He did not see the shape-shifters run up to the water’s edge five seconds later.

The river was nearly one-hundred yards wide and thirty feet deep at the center. Ambrose swam out towards the middle along the river’s bottom and then turned with the current. He began pulling himself along the bottom with his hands, his glamour of invisibility extending one-quarter of a mile out in all directions. He spent the remainder of the night and all of the next morning hauling himself, hand over hand, down the river. During the whole of this time he cursed the Quileute shape-shifters in between promises to one day have his revenge.


	10. The Ghost Walker Report

The Cullens had no indicator that anything of significance had happened during the night that just passed. When Sam Uley called and said he needed to speak with them, the whole family was taken by surprise. They were grateful to hear that the shape-shifters were communicating with them. However, the topic for this day’s meeting was a mystery to them all.

Outside the Cullen home, it was a pleasant noon February day, by human standards. The temperature was slightly below freezing and the air had only a slight breeze in it. A thin overcast of clouds glowed white from the effects of the sun’s rays. Snow blanketed the landscape two feet high and caked atop anything that could hold its weight. The countryside about the house was still and quiet up until the moment Jacob’s Charger rumbled up the access road and parked in front of the house. Within half a dozen seconds, from the time the engine was shut down, Jacob, Sam, Paul and Embry had climbed out of the vehicle. All looked to be seriously undressed for the weather and acted indifferent to same. They promptly filed up to the front door of the Cullen home without a word being passed between them. The door opened the instant they assembled there. Esme ushered the four shape-shifters into her home with a pleasant demeanor and then closed the door behind them.

“They have something to tell us, and they don’t know how we’re going to take it.”

Edward whispered these words to Carlisle, Bella, Jasper, Rosalie and Emmett just as the shape-shifters entered the house. No one thought to query Edward about this. They knew he would not be able to answer before the shape-shifters entered the living-room where they were.

“Sam, Jacob, Paul, Embry, welcome,” Carlisle greeted as the four stepped into the room.

The Cullens, minus Esme, were standing in a cluster in the center of the room. The shape-shifters came to a stop half a dozen feet opposite of them. Esme continued on across to stand with her family. She then turned about to face the shape-shifters before adding some hospitality to Carlisle’s greeting.

“Won’t you have a seat?”

“No,” Sam responded bluntly. “We’ve come to tell you something that you’ll probably find out any way, sooner or later.” Sam gave a nod towards Edward as he spoke the last part of his remark.

“We’re listening,” Carlisle responded calmly.

Sam paused to give the Cullens a brief study before starting his report. “The Ghost Walker was here last night.”

Sam paused again to note the reactions of the family of vampires. They were clearly surprised to be hearing this. The Cullens looked about at each other briefly with perplexed expressions. After two seconds of this, Jasper took point with the family’s response.

“Why weren’t we told of this when it happened?”

“We don’t report to vampires,” Paul quickly answered back with a packaged response.

“He got away?” Bella questioned with a surprised inflection.

“We’ll get him next time,” Sam responded back.

Edward, as usual, studied the shape-shifters intensely as he gathered their story from out of their thoughts. Carlisle and Esme shortly returned to their calm and unexpressive demeanors, and Alice and Jasper expressed a quiet annoyance with this report. Rosalie and Emmett, unlike the others, were agitated to the point of animated reactions.

“There would be no need for a next time if you had told us this last night.” Emmett bellowed with an angry toss of his hands.

“Stupid mutts,” Rosalie spouted as she brought her hands to her hips, her words overlapping Emmett’s complaint.

“There’s nothing you could have done,” Jacob spoke up with a hint of defiance.

“We could have helped you,” Jasper quickly insisted.

“We don’t need your help,” Embry countered in a huff.

“Obviously you do,” Rosalie argued back loudly.

“You couldn’t have caught him,” Paul angrily countered.

“Bella can see him,” Alice retaliated sharply. “Can any of your hounds do that?”

“We don’t have to see him,” Paul responded right back. “We can smell him from over a mile away.”

“Apparently that wasn’t good enough,” Rosalie retorted snidely.

“The winds kept shifting on us,” Sam reported somberly. “He smelled us before we could close the trap. It won’t happen again.”

“You’ve got that right,” Rosalie spat out with an incredulous shake of her head.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Paul challenged.

“You’ve showed him your hand,” Jasper promptly explained. “He’s going to be looking for you now.”

“Let him,” Embry boldly spoke out. “We’re not afraid of the Ghost Walker.”

Rosalie was just about to respond to this when Carlisle cut her off.

“Enough! What’s done is done.”

The room went quiet in response to Carlisle’s direction. He, in turn, paused to note this before continuing with his thought.

“Sam, it’s important that you contact us when the Ghost Walker is on the peninsula from now on.”

“Next time we will call,” Sam Uley concurred soberly. “But we will not wait for you.”

“Understood,” Carlisle agreed with an affirmative nod of his head. He then paused for a moment to reflect on his next thought and then gently moved half a step closer to Sam. “You should also consider giving us access onto the reservation.”

The instant he made this suggestion, Paul and Embry went into displays of animated disapproval. Jacob visibly stiffened, as well, in response to the idea.

“Vampires must never be allowed onto our lands,” Embry yelled, more so for Sam’s benefit than Carlisle’s.

“We will never allow a vampire on Quileute land.” Paul’s roar, overlapped Embry’s and was completely for Carlisle’s benefit.

Sam regarded the request with a poker face expression. After taking a couple of seconds to consider, he then responded with the same calm as his deliberation. “This we cannot do.”

Jacob, Paul and Embry were visibly relieved to hear this response. Carlisle immediately went to work on trying to overturn this decision.

“If this vampire returns, he may come after you and yours,” Carlisle warned in his most sincere tone of expression.

“Let him try,” Paul laughed defiantly.

“You need our help,” Carlisle quickly countered.

“We can get the Ghost Walker on our own,” Jacob responded swiftly.

“This is true,” Sam supported. “We almost had him last night. It is only by luck that he got away.”

“He won’t make the same mistake next time,” Carlisle insisted with a stern expression.

“Neither will, we,” Sam countered behind a barely contained growl.

Carlisle could see that Sam’s mind was set and acquiesced to this with a nod of his head and a soft, “okay.”

Sam took note of Carlisle’s acceptance of his position and recomposed himself for his final remark.

“In return for our reports, we expect you to do the same for us.”

“Of course,” Carlisle acceded without hesitation.

A silence descended between the two groups. Carlisle anticipated that the business between them had concluded and waited on the shape-shifters to take their leave. After a short pause he noted Sam’s look to Jacob with a slight turn of his head. He, in turn, followed his look. Jacob took a moment to gather his thoughts before speaking. There was an expression of reluctance within his demeanor as he hesitated to do this. Edward whispered into this silence in Carlisle’s direction.

“Jacob has something he wants to talk to us about.”

All eyes turned toward Jacob. He paused a moment longer to acknowledge this attention and then he spoke.

“I’m guessing that because of this visit by the Ghost Walker that none of you will be leaving the peninsula anytime soon.”

“We haven’t discussed it,” Carlisle responded with barely a thought. “But I don’t see how we can under the circumstances.”

“The Ghost Walker is after Bella,” Esme spoke up after Carlisle. “If we’re going to catch this vampire, then we’ll have to be here where he can find us.”

“Assuming he’s still looking,” Rosalie quickly added after.

“Either way, you’re all going to be here for another year or so, aren’t you?” Jacob quickly questioned the Cullens.

“Without some change in the situation, I don’t see how we can avoid it,” Carlisle responded with an inquisitive look. He could not help but wonder what the thinking was behind Jacob’s questions. To get the answer to this, he put a question to Jacob. “Why?”

“I just thought that you might want to pull Nessie out of school and keep her on the peninsula until this is over with.” Jacob tendered this suggestion with a hint of embarrassment. “I mean with all of you here, don’t you think this is the safest place for her?”

Carlisle did not want to tell Jacob that the family had already put this suggestion to Nessie and that she had turned it down. He thought it would add to his worry to know that they had their concerns about her living away from them as well.

“We’re keeping tabs on Nessie, Jacob” Carlisle reassured with a sympathetic voice.

Jacob paused for a second to fathom what, keeping tabs on, meant. He glanced at Alice with a quick look of confusion and then back to Carlisle with a look of incredulity.

“Alice can’t see Nessie in her visions,” Jacob blurted out emphatically.

Concerned over his distress, Bella quickly spoke up in hope of easing his anxiety. “We’re having Nessie call us twice a day and Alice is monitoring us for those calls.”

“I see us getting these calls over the next four days,” Alice quickly supported.

“You’ve made mistakes before,” Jacob responded in a tone thick with worry.

“Not like this, Jacob,” Alice earnestly assured. “This is family. I’m very good at visualizing family. If Nessie misses a call I’ll see it four days before it happens.” Alice paused to give weight to her final remark. “I’ve got this, Jacob. I promise.”

Jacob slowly backed away from his query with a look of reluctance. A few seconds later, Sam ended the meeting with a “let’s go.” The Quileute promptly turned about after that and left the residence with Esme showing them to the door.

“He’s worried about Nessie, but he’s trying to resist it,” Edward advised the family upon Esme’s return.

“I think we all are,” Carlisle tossed out off the cuff.

The family quietly agreed with Carlisle’s sentiment. A few seconds later Emmett interrupted this silence with a boisterous question.

“What happened last night with those wolves?”

“They almost had him,” Edward answered impassively. “It was in all of their memories.”

“So, you think those mutts can actually catch this vampire?” Rosalie questioned with an angry tinge to her voice.

“They think so.”

“We’re not going to just sit back and do nothing when this guy comes back,” Emmett loudly protested.

“If he comes back,” Jasper quickly corrected.

“Don’t even think that,” Rosalie softly complained.

“I think we have to consider the possibility that we have lost our best chance of catching this vampire,” Jasper suggested soberly.

“Jasper is right,” Carlisle concurred reflectively.

“Damn those wolves,” Emmett roared. “How are we supposed to catch this guy now? If he doesn’t come back to the peninsula then we’re screwed.”

The family took a moment to consider Emmett’s analysis. Rosalie interrupted this contemplation three seconds later with a question.

“So, how long are we going to stay on the peninsula?”

The family deferred to Carlisle for this answer and he, in turn, obliged them after a brief ponder.

“I think we should stay at least until Nessie graduates from college.”

There was a quiet agreement, one after the other, with nods of the heads from Rosalie, Alice, Esme and Emmett. Jasper interrupted this silent poll with a question.

“What do we do if he doesn’t come back by then?”

“Everybody leaves… I stay,” Bella quickly inserted.

“No,” Edward sternly rebuked an instant after.

“He wants me,” Bella argued before Edward could finish his thought. “If this is between me and this Ghost Walker, then let him find me.”

Edward confronted Bella face on before speaking his next words.

“If you think I’m leaving you here alone, than you’re crazy,” Edward insisted.

“You saw what happened the first time,” Bella argued back. “He’s not going to show himself if I’m not alone.”

“If those wolves really did scare him off, he may not come back to the peninsula at all,” Jasper quickly inserted ahead of Edward.

“Our chances of finding this vampire all but disappear if that happens,” Rosalie tossed out with disgust.

“It can be done,” Edward retorted. “He can’t be invisible all the time.”

“So, what are we supposed to do, scour the planet for his scent?” Jasper partially mumbled to himself.

“You got a better plan?” Edward quickly challenged.

“I think we should just wait and see how this goes for now,” Esme softly put in. “Our best chance at getting this vampire is here on the peninsula.”

Slightly embarrassed by Esme’s common sense thinking, Edward, Rosalie, Jasper and Emmett quietly backed away from any further debate. Shortly into this quiet, Carlisle moved towards Bella and stopped just in front of her before verbalizing his own thinking about this.

“If he does come back, we’ll need you to take point in the chase, Bella.”

“I’ll get him,” Bella responded back fiercely. “Even if I have to chase him twice around the planet, I’ll get him.”


	11. Unexpected Guests

“She didn’t give a reason why she was coming?” Charlie questioned with a confused expression.

Renee all but ignored him as she moved about the house, cleaning things and arranging them into their proper places.

“Does she need one?” Renee questioned back without looking at Charlie.

A perplexed Charlie was standing at the head of the hallway that connected the foyer, living-room, dining-room and kitchen. He watched his wife walked between these rooms, while he moved only as much as necessary to stay within easy talking range.

“There’s always a reason,” Charlie disputed. “People don’t just fly in from out of state on a whim.”

“Phillip is her nephew,” Renee retorted in an astonished tone as she brushed by him with a vase full of flowers.

“Doesn’t her coming here, after not speaking to you for eight years, seem strange?” Charlie questioned as he followed her into the living-room.

Renee carefully situated the flowers on the coffee table. She continued to give Charlie no visual attention as she spoke.

“I suppose, Charlie,” Renee complained. “What do you want? I’m sure she’ll tell us why she came, when she gets here.”

Renee finished arranging the flowers and then set off for the kitchen, brushing by Charlie once again. He, in turn, moved back into the hallway and closer to the kitchen.

“That’s another thing,” Charlie began in a challenging tone. “Why didn’t she call and tell us she was coming? We could have picked her up at the airport and brought her here to the house.”

“Like you said, Charlie,” Renee partially yelled from the kitchen. “We haven’t been on speaking terms. She was probably worried that she wouldn’t be welcome.”

“No, that doesn’t add up,” Charlie responded as he pondered the question. “Nobody travels two-thousand miles without knowing they will be welcomed when they get there.”

Renee did not hear the text of Charlie’s last comment and she suspected she was not intended too. Still distracted by her house work, she moved into the dining-room through the door shared by it and the kitchen, carrying with her another vase of flowers. After situating the vase in the room, Renee walked into the hallway and confronted Charlie. He was still in the process of analyzing his last thought when she stopped in front of him.

“Listen, Charlie,” Renee began succinctly. “Please don’t mess this up for me. I need this to go well today. Don’t do your interrogation thing when she gets here, okay?”

“Okay,” Charlie quickly agreed. “I’ll be all smiles and small talk up until the moment she crosses the line.”

Renee gave her husband a brief look of vexation and then walked away to the kitchen.

Sharon Dwyer Cunningham was the younger sister, by two years, of Phillip Dwyer Senior and, subsequently, the aunt of Phillip Junior. Her home, over the past eleven years, resided in San Diego, California. She lived there with her husband, Mark Cunningham; a moderately successful orthodontist, Brian; their ten year old son and Julia; their seven year old daughter. 

The relationship between Renee and Sharon was never a close one. Sharon never understood her brother’s affinity for this older woman, with the semi-hippie lifestyle. Her own, much more conservative values were a contrast to Renee’s and she was quietly opposed to their decision to get married because of it. She had hopes that her brother would marry someone more like herself in age and behavior. Despite this conflict in ideologies, Sharon’s opposition to the marriage was motivated by her concern for her brother and not by any vindictiveness towards Renee. She could have easily thought of Renee as an unusual friend had she not been involved with her brother.

Sharon’s and Renee’s relationship was originally limited to a cordial interaction. When Phillip Dwyer Senior went missing, Sharon’s behavior towards her sister-in-law turned bitterly inhospitable. They could not be in the same room together without Sharon erupting into vitriolic hysterics. Their association came to an end a month after the disappearance of Phillip Senior. They had not seen or spoken to one-another from that day until this.

Six months had passed since the shape-shifter’s meeting with the Cullens. Summer was in the height of its intensity, Nessie was home from college and Renee was making preparations for a visit from her ex sister-in-law. Their reunion was planned for later that Saturday afternoon. Renee had no bitter feelings towards Sharon. After learning the truth behind Phillip Senior’s disappearance, she harbored sympathies for her one time sister-in-law. This was due entirely to feelings of guilt about Phillip Senior’s disappearance. Not being able to share with her the truth about this event, exasperated this feeling of culpability.

It was Renee’s hope that this meeting would renew the cordial relationship they once had. She sincerely wished for her son to know his relations on his father’s side and she had every hope that this meeting would make that wish come true. Charlie, however, was not even close to sharing this sentiment. His feeling of regret for Sharon was offset by her past unbridled belligerence towards Renee and himself. Her intransigent belief that Renee was somehow responsible for Phillip Senior’s disappearance made it impossible for him to feel any sympathy for her. He always found her argument to this effect irrational and maliciously motivated. His opinion of her was also shaped by the fact that he had only seen her once, shortly after Phillip Senior had disappeared and he had no prior history of better times to weigh that against.

Phillip Junior had never seen his aunt, Sharon Dwyer-Cunningham, and she had never seen him. Li’l Phil had no knowledge, either personal or informed, of the events that had divided his mother and his aunt. When he was advised that she was coming, he gave it no thought at all. The only special attachment he gave to this meeting was drawn from the level of attention his parents were giving to it. He played in his backyard, with two of his friends from down street, up until the moment Renee called him in to be washed and redressed.

Sharon Dwyer-Cunningham arrived in front of the home of Charlie, Renee and Phillip at a quarter before three in the afternoon. She stepped out of a taxi with her ten year old son, Brian, and her seven year old daughter, Julia, in tow. Standing five-feet ten-inches tall, Sharon was an attractive woman. Her athletic build gave her the look of being physically fit. Her face was just beginning to reflect the maturity of her thirty-four years of age. She was attired in a, sleeveless, camel colored, knee length and sheath dress. Her shoes and small purse were chosen to match her attire. Her blonde hair was short and combed back over her head and a modest pair of clip on earrings adorned her face. Despite her physique, Sharon was not someone others might call slender. The best days of her figure had clearly fallen away in her past. However, this notwithstanding, Mrs. Cunningham was still a handsome woman.

Brian Cunningham was an attractive enough little boy. His features and physique were not unpleasant to the eye and his brunette hair gave away his resemblance to his father. His attire was simple and neat, a white and blue plaid shirt tucked into a pair of light gray twill slacks. A pair of black shoes and a black belt completed his attire. Julia Cunningham was an equally attractive little girl and her long blonde hair was a match to her mother’s. Her hair hung free down to her shoulder blades and was parted to the right of center of her head. She was attired in a sleeveless, pink, thigh length dress that was embedded with an elastic waistband. Ruffles trimmed the collar and the openings for the arms. Pink shoes and white socks completed her ensemble. Both children appeared bemused by this event they were attending. They followed a step behind their mother without question or comment.

“Hi, come on in,” Renee called out cheerfully after opening wide the front door.

Sharon paused for a second outside the door. Her reluctance to enter was clearly seen in her hesitation. Renee held her smile and continued to hold open the door despite this. Shortly, Sharon walked into the foyer with Brian and Julia following behind. The trio came to a stop six feet into the home. Standing at the far-side of the foyer, opposite the door, was Charlie and Phillip. Both were comfortably dressed in shirts and slacks. They stood quietly across the way with looks of anxious anticipation about their faces. Sharon’s complete attention instantly locked onto Phillip.

“Thank you for coming,” Renee spoke up excitedly as she closed the front door.

Sharon reluctantly turned about in response to her welcome.

“Thank you for having us over,” Sharon responded softly back. She then turned her attention back to Phillip and Renee promptly obliged her with an introduction.

“Phillip, this is your Aunt Sharon. She’s your father’s sister.”

Sharon was quick to take advantage of the introduction. She stepped over to Phillip and reached down to shake his hand.

“Hi, Phillip,” Sharon spoke with a large smile on her face.

“Hi,” Phillip answered back as they both shook hands.

“May I hug you,” Sharon entreated with a smile a second behind Phillip’s response.

“Okay,” Phillip shyly replied.

Sharon immediately pulled Li’l Phil into a hug against her abdomen and leaned over as she held him there for a few seconds. When she finally stepped back from him, she held both her hands against his shoulders and situated her nephew directly in front of her.

“You look just the way your father did at this age,” Sharon reported with a grin. “I’m very happy to meet you, Phillip. I hope will be seeing a lot of each other. Is that okay with you?” Sharon finished with a large smile.

Phillip nodded his head in the affirmative as whispered back, “yeah.”

There was a slight pause after this, as if all were trying to savor the moment. Renee beamed with happiness as she looked on at this meeting. A couple of seconds later the remaining introductions took off in rapid succession. Renee had not seen Brian for nearly eight years, when he was toddler. Julia, at that time, had yet to be conceived, let alone born. Renee quickly ingratiated herself with the two Cunningham kids and then steered everyone into the living-room so that all might sit and visit.

Renee ushered her guests into chairs and immediately set about to providing all with liquid refreshments. When her nervous energy had nothing else it could be tasked to do, she settled down into a chair opposite her guests. Charlie maintained a quiet, but polite manner. He said as little as possible and when he did speak it was only when prompted to by someone else. It was obvious that his plan was to endure the evening and do as little else as necessary. Sharon was pleasant but distant in her demeanor. With some hesitation, she proffered the obligatory compliments to Renee’s home and its furnishings and then she began admiring the surrounding community. The adults, primarily Renee and Sharon, were doing their best to avoid any embarrassing topics. After exhausting her supply of complimentary chitchat the conversation turned onto their children. They inquired after the likes, habits and history of each other’s progeny, often directly to them. Phillip, Brian and Julia tolerated the questions genially as they fidgeted in their seats. Once this topic appeared to be exhausted, thirty minutes later, a lull fell over the visit. When Renee failed to immediately fill the silence, Charlie took this as his go ahead to do so with a subject that was of interest to him.

“How long will you be here in Port Angeles?”

“One week,” Sharon confessed with a calculating look to Renee and then to Charlie and back again.

Charlie took note of the expression on her face as he pondered the answer she had just given. Renee paid no attention to Sharon’s demeanor, but she was visibly alarmed by her report. Her response to this was sudden and insistent.

“One week, oh no, you have to stay here.”

Sharon sneaked a look to the children out the corner of her eyes before turning her attention to Renee with her reply.

“I don’t think I’m ready for that yet,” Sharon responded delicately.

Renee noted the look Sharon had given to the kids and acted on it a second after she spoke.

“Phillip, show Brian and Julia your room,” Renee instructed with a smile.

Phillip promptly jumped up from his seat. Sharon gave her children permission to follow with a soft, “go ahead.” They, too, quickly got up onto their feet. The three juveniles then hurried out of the room and up the stairs towards Phillip’s room.

“One week?” Renee queried with surprise. “Think of the expense. We have plenty of room here and we would love to have you here.”

Charlie continued to eye his guest suspiciously. There were still more questions he wanted to hear answers to. Her evasive looks kept him forever on his guard.

“I know that I was a little rash and that I made some unfounded …unsupported accusations in the past,” Sharon explained cautiously. “And that is in the past now,” she asserted softly. “But I’m not ready to let all of it go,” she finished with a nervous looks to Renee, then Charlie and back again.

“But a whole week, Sharon, it doesn’t make sense for you to be here all that time and not spend it here,” Renee quickly countered.

“Phillip has a birthday coming up,” Sharon responded with a hint of defiance. “I just plan to be here for that and then we’ll be going home.”

Renee noted the definitive tone in her voice and elected not to push the matter any further. Charlie was not so inclined.

“You say that you’re not ready to let it go, what does that mean?”

“Charlie!” Renee quickly admonished. She then turned her attention back to Sharon. “We’re happy that you want to try and make this work and that you’re in Li’l Phil’s life,” she partially pleaded with a gentle smile. “And we’ll do this however you would like to do it.”

Sharon returned her smile and gave Renee a polite, “thank you.”

The two families went on to have a pleasant, albeit a quiet, dinner together. The visit lasted for nearly four hours and they separated from each other in the manner that they came together. Charlie, Renee and Phillip watched the taxi drive off from the sidewalk in front of their home.

“You don’t believe that woman?” Charlie questioned Renee as Phillip raced back into the house.

“You know, Charlie,” Renee began testily. “I think being a cop has made you incurably cynical.”

“There’s something she’s not telling us,” Charlie calmly asserted.

“Don’t blow this for me, Charlie.” Renee insisted. “Don’t blow this for Phillip,” she spoke again just before turning away for the house.

Charlie continued to stare off into the direction that the taxi drove away in as he pondered Sharon Dwyer-Cunningham. Shortly a thought came to mind and he spoke it aloud.

“I’m not the one who’s going to blow it.”


	12. Family, Friends and Confidants

Nessie had completed her junior year of college and was spending her summer break in Clallam County, once again. Her desire to travel and do things away from Washington State was suppressed by the knowledge that the family was dealing with a threat that required their presence on the peninsula. Normally this would have been a minor inconvenience for her. The Quileute and their shape-shifting guardians were, in the past, an immense source of amusement for her. Their refusal to associate with any Cullen produced a large hole in her summertime play. On top of the diversion they provided, this loss also gave her reason to be depressed. The knowledge that she was hurting Jacob, and the whole shape-shifter pack, brought her near to tears a dozen times over. She searched her mind repeatedly for a way to undo the anguish the shape-shifters were experiencing that did not involve making a commitment to Jacob, but each time the answer was not there to be found. Finally, to ease her melancholy, Nessie sought out her friends from high school.

Nessie indulged in their company repeatedly and often. Several of her high school friends were attending universities as well. They were equally eager to assemble and converse about their new experiences. Traveling to Port Angeles or as far away as Seattle to shop and take in shows was near to a daily event for them. Most of these excursions were prompted and pushed for by Nessie. She zealously encouraged her friends to attend activities with her. After a couple of weeks of this, several of them became concerned about her well-being. Her enthusiastic embrace of their society was far outside of the norm for Nessie. Despite her cheerful display, Nessie’s depression bled through her performance and all of her friends took notice of it. On one occasion, Edie made a point of taking her aside and inquiring about her state of mind.

“What’s wrong, Nessie? What happened?” Edie questioned softly.

“What do you mean,” Nessie responded with feigned ignorance to the topic of conversation.

Edie ignored the deflection and pressed again.

“I know you, Nessie. There’s something bothering you and you’re running from it. That’s not like you.”

“I’m not running from anything,” Nessie reacted with a twinge of defiance.

“So, you want to tell me about it?” Edie entreated in a gentle and pleasing manner.

“No, not really, I’m sorry,” Nessie answered in an apologetic tone.

Edie accepted this reply and said no more about it.

Despite her denial, Nessie would have liked to have talked to Edie about her troubles. Edie was a favorite confidant of hers when it came to normal subjects. When it came to boys at school, clothing or local social events, Edie was her first choice of persons to talk with. Their affection for each other was near to that of sisters. This was a bond that was formed out of five years of acquaintance. Excluding Edie from the supernatural side of her life was always an unpleasant feeling for Nessie. She knew Edie trusted her with all aspects of her life that she was not too embarrassed to share. Those parts that were too embarrassing, she often acquired through an innocent touch of her hand, or a brush from her arm. Edie, more than any other person that she knew, made her feel that her entire life among non-super-naturals was a lie. The guilt that came with this endeared her childhood friend to her all the more.

For casual matters, involving vampires and shape-shifters, Nessie often discussed these with Leah Clearwater. There was no guilt here. There were no boundaries, with regards to subject matter, that had to be adhered to. She and Leah had a bond that was forged out of necessity. As the only female shape-shifter, Leah often felt isolated. Until Nessie, there was no one of her sex that she perceived as a peer. Leah had no affinity for what she was and would have gladly given it away to be a normal human. Conversing about this aspect of her life with a non-supernatural was an embarrassment for her. Nessie provided her with a vocal outlet for her feelings and she reciprocated, in turn. However, Nessie dared not speak to Leah about anything she did not want communicated into the collective thoughts of the wolf pack. She saw this as an annoying limitation in their relationship. Nessie dearly wished that she could converse with Leah about Jacob. For this matter she was usually left with Renee as her only recourse.

Nessie had no complaints regarding her talks with Renee other than the feeling that she was never conversing with a peer. There was always the hint of a lecture in the tone of Renee’s speech. She always had the faintest of feelings that her grandmother was taking Jacob’s side in any discussion about the two of them. Whenever she challenged her on it, Renee would report that she was simply playing the role of the devil’s advocate, or something to that effect. Nessie could never quite figure out what Renee’s position was with regards to her and Jacob. The only thing that she knew for sure was that Renee was not completely supportive of hers. Nessie would endure her critical questions agreeably and continue to unburden her thoughts onto Renee. Later, Nessie would go off and analyze her grandmother’s disturbing queries. She often left Renee more confused than she was at the start. In Nessie’s mind, the only benefit that came from confiding in Renee was the fact that she was always there to listen.

Surprisingly for Nessie, the person who came closest to being the ideal confidant was her mother. While the close attachment between most mother-daughter combos tended to deteriorate over time. The connection between Bella and Nessie grew stronger with the passage of it. They were known to be seen at times, giggling like a couple of school girls. This did not mean that Nessie did not enjoy a close relationship with her other female vampire relations. It was just that their perspective often had a tendency towards being out of date with the times. This was a failing that Bella did not have. Their positions on music, fashion, social etiquette and relationships were very much in sync. To strangers they looked like sisters. It was for these reasons, and one other, that Nessie sought out her mother, more than anyone else, for heart to heart conversations regarding all things supernatural.

Bella was the opposite of Renee in her stance regarding Nessie and Jacob. Where Renee was non-committal to either side of the debate, Bella was staunchly committal to whichever side her daughter took. Despite their seemingly sister-like association, Bella was fiercely protective of her daughter. This tenacity stemmed from some feelings of guilt about Nessie’s very being. Bella knew that she had brought a daughter into a world that had no place for her. Protecting Nessie and enveloping her into the family as tightly as she could was a preoccupation for Bella. Sharing Nessie’s confidence and supporting her decisions was Bella’s way of trying to mend the disparity that came about with the accident of her birth. From Nessie’s perspective, her mother was the truest friend she could ask for.

The final endorsement for Nessie’s and Bella’s confidential exchanges was the fact that, whatever was said between them stayed between them. Edward was blocked from Bella’s thoughts until she chose to let him in and Nessie could block him from her thoughts when she chose to keep him out. Blocking Edward’s mind reading ability was an accidental discovery for Nessie. Edward casually disclosed, seven years earlier, that her thoughts had a tendency to disappear in his mind when she became frightened or angry. These disappearances were always short lived and Edward thought nothing of mentioning this in the manner of an interesting observation. Nessie, on the other hand, was quite thrilled by this information and quickly developed this ability so that she could call on it at will. This new event shortly solidified the pack of secrecy between mother and daughter, much to the annoyance of Edward. The convenience of this situation was so great that Bella felt free to confide her private thoughts to Nessie, in turn. This shared aptitude quickly became the twine that bound their unusual mother/daughter relationship.

Unfortunately for Nessie, Bella was seldom around for these heart to heart exchanges. The practice of the Cullen vampires to rotate their visits meant that she could only count on Bella being around two to three months out of each year. Nessie had grown to cope with her absence over the years. Her time away from the peninsula reinforced this acceptance of their separations. However, the family’s present predicament provided Nessie with unparalleled access to her mother and she exploited this on several occasions. She found Bella, as usual, supportive of her own decisions and unquestioning with regards to her thinking. However, despite Bella’s cheerleader-like endorsement, Nessie continued to be despondent over her new relationship with the Quileute and the pain she was causing Jacob. The distractions of friends appeared to be the only option left for the relief of her melancholy. In this she devoted all her efforts up until the moment her friends began to evade her depression. When she could no longer count on her friends to buoy her spirits, Nessie elected to turn back to the solace that carried the greatest weight outside of the distractions of friends.

“Have you learned anything knew about this Ghost Walker?” Nessie queried in a casual manner.

She and Bella were lounging together in the cottage living-room. This was a popular local for their mother/daughter talks. The cottage, unlike the house, was not conducive to hosting the whole family all at once and the distance from the primary residence assured privacy. All of the Cullens used this location, in ones and twos, to separate themselves from the others.

“No, nothing,” Bella reported with a soft hint of dismay. “Carlisle and Jasper have queries working through the community but this guy is looking more and more like a ghost.”

Nessie had no response to this. Her interest was not fixed on the subject that she introduced. This was a fact that Bella was well aware of. She knew that her daughter was only interested in the feudal activities of vampires when they were an immediate threat to her or someone she cared for. The social activities in her immediate vicinity were a near constant preoccupation for her, now more than ever. After concluding her response, Bella waited patiently for her daughter to steer the conversation where she would.

More than a minute of silence passed between them as they sat opposite one another. Nessie sat with her legs crossed in a sofa chair and her eyes cast down towards the floor, for the most part. Bella sat in a similar fashion on the sofa across from her. A sofa pillow rested in her lap with her hands laced together on top of it. She watched as her daughter seemingly searched the floor for something that she could not find.

“I keep wondering if I shouldn’t just give myself to Jacob,” Nessie pondered aloud. “It’s not like I don’t love him.”

Hearing this set off an alarm in Bella’s head. She could not bear to think that her daughter was settling on a life she did not want simply to please someone else, even Jacob.

“If Jacob truly loves you, then he should be willing to sacrifice his happiness for yours.” Bella asserted with a fixed stare.

“But, it’s not like I don’t have the time to spare,” Nessie countered with an expression of confusion. “No one knows how long I’m going to live.”

“Is that what you want?” Bella quickly retorted. “If spending the next fifty or one-hundred years with Jacob is what you want then you should do it. But it should be what you want to do.”

“That’s just it,” Nessie sighed as she tossed her head back against the chair. “I’m not sure what I want.”

Bella was convinced that Nessie was not in-love with Jacob, at least not in the manner necessary to base a life time commitment on. She used her own experience to arrive at this conclusion. Her own feelings towards Edward were never in doubt. She knew what she wanted and she never wavered from this. Because of this surety, Bella desperately wanted to prevent Nessie from making the wrong decision.

“Don’t let external situations pressure you into making a decision that’s wrong for you,” Bella insisted in a finite tone. “This is your life to do with as you want and if Jacob or the rest of those wolves can’t deal with it then it’s there problem. Nessie, don’t let them railroad you into doing something that you don’t want to do.”

Nessie took a moment to ruminate as she continued to lean back in her chair. After another dozen seconds of thought she started to ponder aloud again.

“I always thought of love as an adventure, but with Jacob I feel as if I would be giving away my chance for adventure.”

Bella felt no need to add anymore to what she had already said. Her read on her daughter was that her thoughts were already working against making a commitment to Jacob. She decided that the best thing she could do at that time was listen to her ponderings. After a short pause, Nessie continued to vocalize her thoughts.

“This would be so much simpler if he wasn’t so madly in-love with me,” Nessie expelled in a long sigh.

Bella continued to hold her silence as her daughter sorted out her thoughts.

“He’s out there right now,” Nessie asserted with a quick questioning look to Bella. “You do know that?”

“Yes,” Bella answered with a slight nod of her head in the affirmative.

“He’s been lurking around the woods outside of the house, day and night, ever since I came back from Berkeley.”

“We think he’s protecting you,” Bella reported softly.

“From this Ghost Walker guy,” Nessie questioned with a mild degree of astonishment.

The question was rhetorical and Bella gave no thought to answering it. The family briefed Nessie on the Ghost Walker’s exploits on the peninsula while she was away at school. The Cullens, minus Nessie, believed that Jacob’s new heightened attentiveness was due to this event. Nessie perceived it as just another example of his undying devotion.

“That’s just what I mean,” Nessie spouted with even greater astonishment. “How do I hurt someone who loves me like that?”

“How can someone who loves you like that ask you to do anything that will hurt you?” Bella gently questioned back.


	13. Compatriots Rising

_Damn those Olympic Vampires,_ Ambrose fumed in his thoughts. Six months had passed since his last venture onto the Olympic Peninsula and he was still fretting over his failure to get his hands on Bella Cullen. His anger only grew worse with time. He could not stop himself from ruminating endlessly about the events that transpired while he was there. Despite the fact that he did not see a Cullen during the entire ordeal, he could not stop himself from blaming them for the whole debacle. He knew that they and the shape-shifters were connected in some way. Friendship, a defensive alliance, master and pet, the specifics of this did not matter. He was convinced that this connection is what caused the incursion to go so wrong. The Cullens were at fault for this failure and this belief made him all the more determined to end Bella Cullen’s existence. The Olympic Coven had to know that he could not be denied.

After his encounter with the shape-shifters, Ambrose sulked away to Fazar, a tiny community in a mountainous region of Turkey. Desolate looking in appearance, Fazar looked more like a failed attempt at a town. Hidden in the midst of dark gray chiseled mountains, it was nearly isolated from the world beyond. The earth-tone, single and two story buildings that comprised the town, looked as if they sprung up out of the ground. The windows, doors and red hued shingles that adorned the roofs were the only parts of them that looked out of place with the landscape. Green vegetation was everywhere, forcing its way up through the cracks in the streets and along the base of the buildings. During the day the town looked nearly deserted. Only a handful of people wandered about the community at any one time. It was only at night, when the lights within the buildings contrasted against the dark, would anyone know that the town was fully occupied.

Ambrose’s traverse to Fazar was not a random act. He had briefly visited this area before, more than one-hundred years earlier. He was never comfortable in the company of other vampires and vacated the area shortly after acquiring the lay of the land. He took with him the memory that vampire enclaves were hangouts for the displaced and disenchanted of his kind. Had he ever felt the need to socialize with other vampires, this would have been his first choice of places to be. Fazar was one of twenty-two vampire enclaves, situated about the planet, which was known to all veteran immortals. These enclaves served as gathering places where vampires could meet and converse with their own kind. The circumstance that brought Ambrose back to Fazar this day was a need to recruit others of his ilk.

Ambrose knew that a vampire enclave was the ideal location for forming alliances with other vampires. One to two dozen vampires passed through these enclaves monthly. On top of being places for immortals to meet and associate with their own kind, vampire enclaves served as message boards. The exchange of information and histories in these locales played an integral role in the vampire communication network. These enclaves were invariably small isolated communities in lawless or near lawless regions around the world. They were always controlled by a vampire that maintained an association with a mortal that had significant influence within the area. These associations were nearly always hinged on the promise that the human would be turned into a vampire at a future date. In exchange for this promise, the human would do the bidding of the vampire and the vampire would, in turn, protect the interests of the human. These associations between vampires and humans were always under the table dealings. This was due to the bylaw among vampires that forbade them from making their existence known to humans. These types of human/vampire dealings were generally accepted as a gray area within the vampire community. It was expected, under pain of death, that the vampire in question would one day fulfill their promise and turn the human into a vampire, or betray it, and kill him or her instead. Because of this understanding, powerful covens maintained a, “don’t ask/don’t tell,” policy with regards to these transactions.

The vampires that visited these enclaves were obliged by circumstance not to forage for prey within the immediate vicinity. This was simply a matter of mathematics. A dozen vampires foraging for food within a small community would be impossible to hide from the notice of humans, even in a lawless community. Subsequently, the enclave was off limits for hunting purposes. The surrounding region, however, was fair game. Badlands were the hunting preserves of vampires. This was due solely to the fact that these areas were overstocked with humans who were expected to come to violent ends at some time in their near futures. An all you can eat buffet was a prerequisite for any good vampire enclave.

The vampires that regularly visited these enclaves were nearly always nomadic and half of them were solitary travelers. This was the lifestyle of a vampire that was discontented with the status quo. Generally speaking, they had no desire for maintaining a façade of innocuity for a community of humans so that they could move among them unnoticed. To many of these vampires, mortals were simply food. The idea of maintaining a friendly disposition before them was considered repugnant. The only thing that prevented them from slaughtering humans indiscriminately was the dominion of the territorial covens. Their comfortable existences within the human community were dependent upon a strict adherence, by all, to the vampire covenant. This was the primary divide between nomadic vampires and territorial covens. Vampire enclaves were the places where these discontented immortals went to grumble about their plights. In Fazar, Ambrose mingled among kindred spirits.

Ambrose wandered into the Fazar Vampire Den on the first night of his arrival. In reality it was a tavern that eked out an existence from a handful of human customers that ventured into the establishment on a daily basis. Most humans that entered here knew that there was something strange and dangerous about the individuals that lounged here for hours and hours. These humans always kept their attendance brief. The owner of the establishment, a local gang lord, was the only human that knew who and what these individuals were. The tavern was primarily a front for his criminal enterprises and a meeting hall for vampires that visited Fazar.

Ambrose took a seat at an empty table and monitored the talk among the six other vampires seated together at a table across from him. His solitary presence was at first was cause for suspicion for them. It was rare for a vampire to enter the den and not introduce themself to some other vampire in the room. News and information was freely traded in these vampire enclaves, but one had to converse to get it. After an hour of silence from the solitary vampire, the table of six began to relax and returned to speaking freely among themselves. Forty-five minutes after this Ambrose heard something that intrigued him enough to cut in.

“You speak the truth,” Ambrose announced to the table of six vampires sitting across the room from him. “If the Olympic Coven had their way, none of us would be alive right now.”

The vampire, Mateo, had just vocalized his distaste for the Olympic Coven’s apparent disdain for strange vampires that entered their territory when Ambrose interjected this opinion.

“And you know this how, Little Vampire?” The vampire, Noah, grumbled back with a glare.

“The Olympic Coven is a particular interest of mind,” Ambrose reported in a sly tone.

The table full of six vampires gave Ambrose a contemptuous stare after pausing from their discussion. Noah, the immortal that Ambrose responded to was a brawny, six-foot four-inch tall vampire with sandy blonde hair, brown eyes and a broad dimpled chin. The large vampire was dressed in a long, tan colored, tattered and dirty, buckskin oilcloth duster. His clothing beneath this was a nondescript gray T-shirt, tan khaki pants and brown workmen boots. His handsome face would have been pleasing enough to attract the smiles of most women were it not for the near constant grimace he kept on display there. His temperament was always in alignment with his facial expressions and his hostility was nearly always being kept grudgingly in check.

Noah’s time as a vampire went back less than one-hundred years. His human life came to an end when a vampire found him broken and bleeding to death in a New York City alley. He was twenty-seven years old at the time. A dock worker by trade, Noah supplemented his income by hiring himself out as muscle to anyone who would pay. This was a practice that made for him many enemies, which was not an unusual situation for him. Abandoned as a baby a decade before the great depression, Noah spent the bulk of his first fifteen years of life in an orphanage, where he battled with and bullied the other children there. The institution finally kicked him out when he became too big for the adult staff to safely manage. A perpetually angry person, Noah was only truly contented when he was venting his rage out on someone else. This was a characteristic of his that he carried into his immortal existence. Noah had no fondness for the covens that governed his existence. The other vampires at this table shared this perspective.

“And why is that?” Mateo pleasantly questioned Ambrose’s interest in the Olympic Coven.

Mateo studied Ambrose out the corner of his eyes with a sly smile on his face. A hefty, six-foot tall vampire, with piercing black eyes, a tan complexion and straight black hair that fell down to a length just below the tops of his shoulders, Mateo was significantly less imposing looking than Noah. He sported a goatee connected to a short beard that crowned the end of his jaw. His features were not unattractive and were helped by a sly smile that often adorned his face. Most humans that came to look upon him shortly learned the sinister thinking behind his jovial expression.

Mateo began his vampire life more than four-hundred years earlier in the crew quarters of a Spanish Galleon. An enterprising vampire decided to feast on a ship’s crew while it was at sea and then sink the vessel along with all evidence of his deed. Mateo survived the carnage by accident and was permitted to go through the change. He took to his new situation quickly and with great enthusiasm. His prior thirty-six years as a pauper’s child and an itinerant worker had made him hungry for a life at the top of the food chain. Suddenly for him the world was a chew toy that Mateo played with at his leisure.

“We share a brief history.” Ambrose carefully spoke his answer to Mateo’s query, after a furtive glance towards the bartender/proprietor.

The table of six vampires was intrigued by this answer and the glance that came before it, but all were reluctant to show it. In their minds, they all considered the possibility that the little vampire was lying or at best, exaggerating.

“You don’t know anything?” Jia spat out with no small amount of disdain. “You’re just another petty vampire with puffed up ideas about, himself.”

Jia was a five-foot two inch tall female vampire, of Asian lineage, and Mateo’s mate. Her long wavy black hair fell down to the top of her shoulders. She was very attractive in appearance and well-endowed physically, though you would not know this by her appearance. Her physique was well hidden beneath a black jacket; four sizes too big and a black skirt that fell down to the tops of her shoes. A broad rimmed black hat adorned her head and a pair of black hiking shoes completed her ensemble. Disdainful looks kept most humans at a distance from her, but this was of no inconvenience for Jia. She preferred to catch her prey on the run.

Jia’s life as a vampire began more than six-hundred years earlier, when a coven of vampires elected to grant her request to become one of them. The motivation behind this request was a desire to avenge herself on a wealthy warlord and his compatriots after they raped and tormented her and a dozen others in her village. They then forced her to endure seeing all that she cared for murdered. Jia became convinced that it was her village’s extreme poverty that gave the wealthy leave to amuse their selves at her expense. In Jia’s mind, recompense for the pain of this event could only be satisfied by an equivalent act. She spent the next one-hundred and seventy years targeting the families and the descendants of the men who did this to her, one by one. When there was no one left to kill, she sought out new humans to satisfy her anger. The only prerequisite she had for all future victims was that they be financially secure and content. The pain and misery she inflicted on well-to-do mortals continued to be an appeasement for the rage that burned within her.

“I know all of them by smell, as well as by appearance and I know all of their strengths and all of their weaknesses.” Ambrose softly spoke this with a smile on his face.

“Who cares what he knows,” Jabarl gruffly retorted. “The Olympic Coven is nothing to us.”

“Still, I would be interested in hearing what the little vampire knows,” Noah quickly spoke up.

“He’s after something,” Jabarl asserted to Noah specifically.

Jabarl was a thin, six-foot two-inch tall male vampire with a strikingly tone and muscular physique. His dark, ebony brown complexion, betrayed his African lineage. His hair was short to the point of barely being visible from a short distance away. His facial features were chiseled and angular and were always masked over with an expression of anger, except when he chose to smile. This he did infrequently, but always without restraint. His generosity with his smiles was just his way of expressing his enjoyment for his pastimes. His smiles were among the last thing his human prey ever saw.

Jabarl became a vampire in the North West Province of South Africa in the year 1895. As a member of the Tswana peoples, indigenous to the region, Jabarl knew hardship and degradation under the dominion of the Dutch and the British. Despite this, he always managed to conceal his anger well enough to make a living as a laborer within their communities. His strength and endurance made him a valuable asset and his congeniality and intellect made him promotable, to a limit. When a Dutch female vampire arrived in human disguise, she quickly took a fancy to him and then turned him into a vampire shortly after that. Together they have preyed upon the humans from that day to this.

“Is that true, Little Vampire,” Rozamond cheerfully queried as she leaned affectionately against Jabarl, her mate. “Are you after something?”

Rozamond was a buxom, six-foot tall, blue eyed female vampire. Her blonde hair, often in a single braid, fell halfway down her back. Her physique sported ample features and was moderately muscular in appearance. Excessively jubilant, she nearly always had a smile on display. For Rozamond, life was a smorgasbord of pleasures and she consumed them greedily, without regard for who they were.

“I seek only to share your company while I’m here,” Ambrose replied tactfully.

“He lies,” Jabarl sharply contradicted. “I can see it in his eyes.”

“Is that true, Little Vampire,” Rozamond queried with a sly smile? “Are you lying to us?”

As a human, Rozamond had a well-earned reputation as a promiscuous woman in her home community within the city of Rotterdam. She took her pleasures where she found them and apologized to no one for the act. On the last night of her human life, she made overt advances to a handsome stranger. The gentleman was highly amused by the attention. When she pressed her intentions into the seclusion of his home, the vampire within him could not stop himself from passing up the bite, despite his normal reluctance against harming someone he liked. In the end, however, the loss of her completely was more than he could stand. He chose instead to turn her and take her on as his mate. The handsome male vampire was initially happy with his choice. Two years into their coexistence he came to regret this decision. He found the appetite of his buxom mate equally great as a vampire as it had been when she was not. The carnage of human debris that she left behind her was more than he could share. They separated from each other’s company before a third anniversary could be reached.

“I’m just making conversation,” Ambrose slyly replied after a second furtive look towards the human bartender.

“Make conversation elsewhere,” Jabarl demanded in an angry voice.

Ambrose was unfazed by the rebuke and countered it with a smile.

“What is your name?” Asked the only vampire left, that had not spoken before.

Ambrose returned her query with silence and a third furtive look towards the mortal.

Sabeen, Noah’s mate, was a strikingly attractive female vampire with long straight black hair that dropped to a length two feet below her shoulders. She stood all of five-foot nine-inches in height. Large brown eyes and full lips made looking at her a delight for most men. She maintained a nearly constant bemused expression when she was in the presence of others. Slight movements of her head, whenever she looked about, gave her a regal air. There was no deception in her pleasing manner. Sabeen was always flattered by anyone’s examination of her, especially men. She often encouraged this with smiles and blushes. However, for many humans this pleasant demeanor fell, sharply, away when she bored of their attentions.

Sabeen’s transition from human to vampire occurred thirteen-hundred years earlier in the city of Thebes, along Egypt’s Nile River. The daughter of a prosperous man, she was adored and pampered as a child. Her beauty was an asset that her father valued, and he quickly cashed it in when she reached the age of fourteen. Sold to a wealthy man, Sabeen eagerly consented to the marriage. She luxuriated in her husband’s favor and in return gave hers unreservedly. Her life was one of idleness and play. Her husband catered to her excesses and turned a blind eye to her extremes. Spoiled and conceited, Sabeen took pleasure in mistreating others for her own amusement. No act was too extreme if it entertained her to inflict it. Then suddenly and for the first time, her perfect life in Thebes took a turn for the worst. Her husband took another wife who was younger and every bit as pretty as she. Angered by the fact that she was no longer her husband’s favorite, Sabeen took out her rage on anyone predisposed to endure it. Over the course of half a dozen years she engendered many enemies who wished to see her dead. A plan was hatched by her servants. Money was paid to a villain. Sabeen was taken from her home, stabbed and left for dead in the desert outside of Thebes. Drawn by the smell of blood, a male vampire, Hasan, came upon her mortally wounded person. Astonished by her beauty, he rescued her from death by turning her into a vampire.

Sabeen did not take to the transition at first. The absence of sycophants and servants, prestige and expensive adornments was at first a deprivation that was hard to live without. However, the freedom to be cruel to whomever she pleased soon balanced out this loss. She quickly came to relish her new powers and used them frequently. Scores of humans became victims of Sabeen’s intolerance for boredom. She soon learned that her human talent for seducing men into doing her bidding was a thousand times more potent in her new vampire configuration. This was a gift that she administered liberally onto her maker. Hasan quickly fell blindingly in love with her, so much so that he ignored her sadistic nature in exchange for the pleasure of her company. He remained so enamored for the next fifty-seven years, right up to the moment that she bored of him and took his head.

“Leave us,” Sabeen ordered with a glare towards the bartender.

The only mortal that was in the room quickly left by way of the back entrance. As soon as he had, all eyes turned back to Ambrose. He, in turn, rose to full stance and stepped around his table to stand before the group of six. They all studied him with slightly bored expressions. Ambrose scanned the occupants of the table for a handful of seconds and then spoke with a confidence that was rarely heard within his voice.

“I am Ambrose Pennington, the last surviving member of the Patagonian Coven, and I, and I alone can free you all from the dominion of the great covens.”

The six vampires were not impressed with this declaration. Mateo, Jia and Rozamond openly laughed in response. Noah and Jabarl looked all the more annoyed. Sabeen was the only one of the six to show neither amusement nor disdain. Shortly into her companions’ levity, she interjected a sharp request of the vampire, Ambrose Pennington.

“Prove it.”

Ambrose gave his watchers a sly smile and then a second later he disappeared from their sight. The laughter and the looks of disdain were gone an instant after. In their places were six faces that were in awe of what just happened right before their eyes. Thirty seconds later, Ambrose reappeared in a different sector of the room. All eyes turned towards him with looks of astonishment.

“Are you convinced?” Ambrose queried the table of six.

“We are intrigued,” Sabeen pleasantly acknowledged with a hint of a smile on her face. “Tell us your story, Ambrose Pennington.”

Ambrose told them of his time as a member of the Patagonian Coven and his battles with the Volturi and Olympic Covens. He explained their strengths and their weakness and how his coven lost to them. He then told them of his adventures on the Olympic Peninsula and the perils that he skirted there. The table of six listened without interruption. They were clearly interested in all he had to say. At the end of his story their interest was sufficed and all began to turn away.

“I am offering you a chance to change the landscape of our world,” Ambrose insisted boldly.

“Your invisibility trick is amusing, Little Vampire,” Noah mumbled under his breath as he looked away. “But it is not impressive enough to entice us into doing battle with the Olympic Coven.”

“The Olympic Coven is nothing,” Ambrose railed back. “The little vampire known as Bella is my only threat. Once I’ve killed her, the others will be no match for me.”

“Then do it,” Jabarl grumbled back angrily. “What do you need us for?”

“The wolves,” Ambrose hissed back. “I need you to take care of those damn wolves.”

“That’s it? …the dogs, nothing more?” Sabeen inquired with a curious inflection.

“It’s hard for me to slip by them and they attack in packs,” Ambrose stressed.

“And we will have nothing to do with the Olympic Coven?” Sabeen leaned forward and asked pointedly.

“Nothing…!”

“They will have no knowledge of us,” Sabeen challenged in a voice stronger by twice. “Don’t lie to me little vampire. I will see it if you do.”

“You have my word,” Ambrose responded curtly. “I just need you to get rid of those wolves.”

Sabeen took a moment to examine Ambrose before leaning back in her chair and responding in a soft voice.

“I believe you.”

The table of six mulled this over with shifting glances until Noah broke the silence with a drawled out question.

“How many of these werewolves are we talking about?”

“Eighteen by my last count,” Ambrose responded succinctly.

“That should be no problem for us,” Rozamond tossed out with a chipper inflection.

“There could be more,” Jabarl grumbled.

“So, we take on some insurance,” Noah responded dryly as he eyed the others at the table.

“And how do we do that?” Jabarl gruffly queried back.

Noah hesitated to give a response. The question first provoked an introspective look and a sly smile. After a few seconds of this, he craftily answered at a volume that was little more than a whisper.

“Vampires with repugnance for the watchdogs of the Olympic Coven should not be hard to find.”

All at the table paused for a moment to digest this idea. A look of agreement began to form on each of their faces

“I still don’t see it,” Mateo pondered aloud. “Even if we do take care of the wolves, how do you plan to get your hands on Bella?”

“It sounds to me like those Olympic vampires are keeping a close watch on her,” Jia pointed out snidely. “If she can make it possible for others to see you, then how do you plan to slip by her coven?”

The table of six went silent as all looked on in anticipation of Ambrose’s answer to this query. He, in turn, scanned the faces of all seated at the table with a devious glare before voicing his response a dozen seconds later.

“I don’t need to get past Bella’s coven. I just need to get my hands on something she values and then she’ll come to me.”


	14. The Advocate

Nessie had not seen her grandmother for nearly two weeks. Her daily excursions with her friends had taken up all of her spare time during this period. She spoke with her over the phone, half a dozen times, but that was the limit of her contact with Renee. She had even less contact with Charlie during this period. His job as Sheriff of Clallam County kept him busy during the daylight hours and often intruded into his evenings. Nessie had grown accustom to Charlie’s busy schedule and never expected to see him if she did not put in the effort to do so.

She had no feelings of guilt about this long absence from her grandparents. Nessie knew if they had wanted to see her, they would have called and ordered her to make an appearance and she would have complied as usual. What was causing Nessie to feel a little guilty was the time she was spending away from Phillip. With each day that passed, Nessie became increasingly aware that her issues with Jacob and the shape-shifters were having an adverse effect on her relationships with others. Now that she was planning to leave the peninsula in another year, her time with Phillip had become quantitatively more important in her mind. Since the news of Sharon Cunningham’s visit, the day before, she was the talk of the family. Nessie concluded that this would be the perfect day to make up for lost time with Phillip. The advantage that came with this was that she could also catch up on some family intrigue as well.

Sharon Dwyer-Cunningham was no one to Nessie personally. She had never met her and knew almost nothing about her. It was the level of discussion occurring between Bella and Charlie, and Bella and Renee, regarding her that captured Nessie’s interest. For Nessie, she was simply something different from the norm and she was in the mood for some distraction.

Nessie arrived outside the front door of the Swan home a quarter after ten in the morning. Renee knew of her coming and quickly answered the bell in anticipation that it was her. They exchanged hellos and quick hugs. Phillip was in the living room when the doorbell rang, engrossed with a video game. He instantly set down the object of his intrigue and ran to the front door. He had no prior knowledge of Nessie’s coming. Someone knocking at the door was reason enough for him to be excited. The instant he set his eyes on Nessie, his excitement doubled. He quickly ran up to her side while jubilantly calling her name, “Nessie.”

“Hey, guy, how are you?” Nessie responded with a large smile.

Phillip grasped her hand and immediately began tugging at her.

“Come on, you have to play my new video game,” Phillip insisted enthusiastically.

Nessie resisted the tug for a moment and then pulled her little uncle into a hug. “Wow, this sounds like a great game,” she exclaimed with a grin.

“It is, it is,” Phillip persisted as he writhed within her hug. A second later he pulled away and began tugging at her arm once again. “Come on, let’s play.”

Nessie continued to resist as she responded to his assertion. “Okay, we will, but let me talk with Renee for a little bit. Okay?”

Phillip agreed to this and quickly ran back into the living-room. Nessie watched him run off and then followed Renee into the dining-room. Her grandmother had been relaxing there with a cup of tea, a bagel and a magazine. Renee offered her the same to which she accepted. They both sat down across from each other. Renee waited on Nessie’s lead.

“So, she’s being nice?” Nessie probed slyly.

“Well, she’s actually being nicer than I’ve ever known her to be,” Renee responded ponderously.

“You think she no longer blames you?”

“I think she’s trying not to,” Renee surmised with a wrinkle of her brow. “I believe she always gave me the benefit of the doubt, in the back of her mind. I think she was just too angry to listen to it before.”

“Are you sure?” Nessie queried with a crafty glare.

“You and your mother are so alike,” Renee reacted with playful disdain. “You get your suspicious natures from your grandfather, you know.”

“Charlie does have a talent for reading people,” Nessie reinforced with a smile.

“Your grandfather thinks everyone is a criminal until proven otherwise,” Renee snidely countered.

Nessie had no retort for this and simply reacted with a grin. Grandmother and granddaughter took a time out to take sips of their tea and then Nessie continued her probe into the lives of her grandparents with intrigued curiosity.

“You really want this to work?”

“She’s Phillip’s aunt,” Renee responded with incredulity. “Yes, I want Phillip to know his aunt and through her, his father.”

Nessie did not want to say anything that might burst Renee’s bubble of hope, so she made no reply to this. She had no reason to doubt that this hope would come true. She was, however, reluctant to jump on this bandwagon in view of Sharon’s decision not to stay the week in this house. Nessie took another sip of her tea and then presented a new query.

“So, where is she?”

“She’s coming over at noon,” Renee reported nonchalantly. “She’s dropping Brian and Julia off to spend the afternoon with Phillip.”

“That’s strange, don’t you think,” Nessie queried a little surprised. “I mean, if it was me, I would want to spend as much time as possible with Phillip.”

“She’s going to do some shopping for Phillip’s birthday,” Renee explained with a hint of admonishment.

Nessie took the rebuke with a momentary smile and then responded with a feigned look of hurt feelings.

“Well, just the same, I think it’s a little presumptuous to just dump your children off on someone else.”

“She asked and I said yes,” Renee explicated with finality.

Nessie accepted this with a grin and then took another sip from her tea. After a moment of silence, Renee concluded that her granddaughter had exhausted her queries on the matter and then began her on inquiries about her.

“So, how are things going with you and Jacob?” There was no humor behind Renee’s inquiry. She was inquisitive and looked every bit of it.

Nessie’s humor quickly faded in turn as she braced herself for the new topic to be conversed. This had more to do with Renee than Jacob. Nessie’s position on the subject had already been buoyed by her talk with Bella. She feared Renee might do more harm than good and considered, for a moment, evading the subject altogether.

“I think it might be getting worse,” Nessie confessed reluctantly.

“How can it get any worse?” Renee questioned with no little amount of surprise.

“He’s been following me around,” Nessie explained with another confessional inflection.

Stunned all the more, Renee perked up with alarm before pushing for more details. “What? Do you mean he’s stalking you?”

“Mom thinks he’s guarding me,” Nessie reported for clarification.

“From what…?” Renee questioned back with concern in her voice.

Nessie quickly noted that she had started down a course that she did not want to go. She knew that her vampire relations deliberately kept her grandparents in the dark about some things and she had no doubt that this was one of them. Thinking quickly, she fashioned an answer designed to dissuade her anxiety, hopefully.

“It’s just more Jacob drama, really,” Nessie tossed out with a touch of theatrics. “Now that we’re not seeing each other, daily, he’s afraid some harm might come to me when he’s not there.”

Renee gave her granddaughter a suspicious look before giving a response to this answer. “That doesn’t sound like Jacob,” Renee cross examined with a studied look. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“There might have been a strange vampire on the peninsula, briefly,” Nessie relented with a flick of her hand. “But it was nothing. He’s gone.”

“When was this?” Renee fired back with alarm.

“This was last year, Grandmother,” Nessie quickly reassured.

“Last year, why didn’t Bella tell me this? Why am I only hearing about this now?” Renee continued to question in an alarmed voice.

“Because they know how you are when you hear these things,” Nessie asserted confidently. “It was nothing. It’s over. He came and he went.”

Renee studied her granddaughter for a few seconds more before responding to her declaration. “And that’s it?”

“Yes.”

“You’re telling me everything?” Renee pushed for another response.

“Yes, Grandmother, that’s everything. I promise.”

Renee studied Nessie with a suspicious look for several seconds more and then backed away from the subject altogether.

“Well then, I guess you can’t blame Jacob too much,” Renee suggested with obvious relief.

“He’s following me around,” Nessie exclaimed in an exasperated voice. “He could be out there right now,” Nessie continued with a point.

“Well, he’s in love with you. What do expect?” Renee challenged with a look of surprise towards Nessie.

“I expect to have a normal life, or as close to normal as I can get,” Nessie reacted on the defensive. “What girl wants to be stalked by some lovesick _puppy_?”

Renee noted the stress in Nessie’s voice and stopped herself from giving a reactionary response. After taking a moment to hold her breath, she responded with a soft, “okay.”

Nessie was not fooled by Renee’s mild response and was all the more annoyed by her attempt to deceive her.

“Okay? What does that mean?” Nessie exacted peevishly.

Renee was reluctant to excite Nessie any more than she already had, but the question tendered felt like it was drawing her in. After a moment of thought, she elected to explain herself delicately.

“It’s just that I think some people would be happy to find a love like that.”

“He’s stalking me,” Nessie insisted with a hint of anger.

“He’s protecting you,” Renee responded softly.

Nessie was more than a little displeased with her grandmother’s reaction to this. She suddenly found herself unable to endure it in silence.

“Why do you always take his side?” Nessie challenged heatedly.

Renee considered the question for a second and then responded in a calm voice. “I’m not taking sides. I’m just saying what I think you need to hear.”

“No you don’t. You advocate for Jacob every time we talk about this,” Nessie asserted with less temper. “I want to know why?”

Renee paused to ponder the response she should give and then gave it with all the sincerity she could manage.

“I don’t advocate for Jacob, really I don’t. I’m just afraid that you’re about to make a mistake.”

“How can doing what I want with my life be a mistake?”

“I don’t think you know what you want. I think you’re too busy being afraid of what you think you might lose.”

“Why can’t you accept the fact that I don’t love Jacob that way?”

“Because maybe this is more about convincing yourself that you’re not in love with Jacob that way.”

“Why would I be doing that?”

“Because you’re afraid…?” Renee queried delicately.

“Afraid of what…?

“Commitment,” Renee flatly asserted in a soft tone of voice.

Nessie pondered this for a moment, but could find no response for it. Renee decided to exploit the silence to sell her thinking on the matter.

“Nothing lasts forever. That’s something we mere mortals understand all too well. When it comes to love, we hold on to it with both hands.”

Nessie gave this last remark several seconds of earnest consideration before softly asking the question this engendered.

“But how do I know that I’m truly in love with Jacob?”

“You’re the only one who will ever know the answer to that.”

“I always thought love would be a feeling of bliss or a yearning that I wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about.”

Renee had no response to this except to give it a bit of a laugh and a broad smile.

“What?” Nessie questioned for an explanation.

“I use to think that I was in love whenever I dreamed about a boy at night,” Renee explained with a smile. “Later I decided that love was a feeling of fear that my affections would not be returned,” she concluded in a ponderous tone.

“So is that it? Is that love?” Nessie queried with an intrigued inflection.

“I suppose, it’s all love in a way,” Renee professed in a humdrum manner. “But now I don’t see love as some pretty sensation.”

“What is it then?” Nessie quickly questioned for the answer.

“Now I think I’m in love when I find a person who feels like the best friend I’ll ever have.”

Nessie took Renee’s answer and mulled it about in her thoughts for several seconds before responding with her analysis.

“You mean the kind of friendship that I had with Jacob.”

“Yes,” Renee responded shortly.

“I don’t think I feel that way about Jacob anymore,” Nessie puzzled out.

“Are you sure you’re not just taking him for granted. You two were practically joined at the hip not so long ago,” Renee responded after a thought.

Nessie thought about this for a moment before stiffening in her seat with a look of defiance.

“I’m not like Jacob. I’m not a shape-shifter. I don’t imprint on people,” Nessie insisted with finality. “I’m capable of finding new best friends.”

“Then I suppose you have your answer,” Renee suggested mildly before turning her attention down into her magazine.

Nessie suspected that this last remark was insincere. She knew Renee better than anyone else in the family. Sincerity and casual statements did not go hand in hand with her. Off the cuff remarks from Renee invariably meant, “Whatever you say, let’s change the subject.” There was, however, one thing that Nessie took away from this conversation as the truth and that was that Renee had no idea what true love felt like. She came to this decision because the feelings she once had for Sean Bowden, her high school calculus teacher. She knew that had to be love. She recalled how much more intense and thrilling those feelings were. Jacob was always just Jacob. Because of this, she concluded that Renee’s idea of love was flawed and that true love was far more intense than what she felt for Jacob.

A few minutes later, Nessie went into the living-room and played with her little uncle and his fascinating new video game. They spent the next hour and a half together, giggling and laughing, as they played digital football, battled digital dragons and raced digital cars. They were interrupted at the end of this time by the arrival of Sharon and her children: Brian and Julia. Nessie was introduced as Edward’s niece and a close member of the family. Sharon was nice, but cool and distant by Nessie’s estimation. Her time in the home was brief, despite Renee’s best effort to make her feel welcomed and wanted. After a dozen minutes, more or less, Sharon left leaving her progenies behind. Nessie did not care for the way she treated Renee and was predisposed to dislike her until given reason to think otherwise.

Nessie remained for another hour. She spent a small portion of this time with Phillip and his two cousins. Her little uncle had someone who could share in his fascination for the video gaming world and she was suddenly in the way. She backed away and watched them at play for a short time. Nessie developed a growing indifference to the eldest of the Cunningham kids, Brian. He seemed, to her, a bit of a bully and a know it all. She suspected, outside of the presence of an adult, he was not a nice little boy. Julia, however, was innocent and sweet. She won Nessie’s affection at first sight.

Renee and Nessie spent the remainder of their time together agreeably conversing about school, work and community gossip. On her way home in the car, Nessie reprimanded herself for talking with Renee about Jacob.


	15. Show and Tell

“I won!” Phillip exclaimed with glee as he thrust his hands into the air.

“So what, it’s a stupid game anyway,” Brian sulked as he tossed the game controller on the floor.

Phillip’s excitement was well earned. The seven year old had been losing regularly to the ten year old. The new game the two boys just completed had the advantage, for Phillip, of being one that his opponent had never played before. He, Brian and Julia were seated on the floor, in the living-room, in front of a large flat screen monitor, situated on a knee-high TV stand. Renee was in the kitchen preparing the evening meal. Brian and Julia spent the past two hours, from the time of his arrival at the Swan home, playing video games with Phillip. Julia did more watching than playing. This was due partly because of Brian and Phillip’s domineering of the game controls and partly because of her disinterest. She was more amused by the antics of her brother and cousin then she was by anything happening on the video screen. Renee tried to spend some time amusing her, but she shortly gave up after noting that she was less entertaining to Julia than the boys were. Julia was contented to simply be in the company of her brother and cousin.

“You wanna play another game?” Phillip suggested with an eager smile.

“No,” Brian insisted. “Your games are stupid.

“I wanna play,” Julia quickly volunteered.

Brian ignored his little sister’s plea as though she was not there. “What other kinda games you got?” Brian’s request was in a commanding tone of voice.

“I’ve got a football,” Phillip reported with an all new expression of excitement. “You wanna play catch.”

“Hah, I bet you got a nerf-ball,” Brian countered with scorn.

“No it’s not,” Phillip defensively contradicted.

An instant behind this assertion, Julia jumped up and declared, “I wanna play catch,”

“Okay,” Phillip spoke up with a grin as he got up off the floor and onto his feet. Julia eagerly jumped up as well. Brian followed their lead with less enthusiasm.

The trio raced through the house, across the kitchen and out the back door. Renee noted their passing with a brief look and a smile and then continued with her preparations for the evening meal. Phillip’s play with his cousins gave her reason to be happy. She knew that the events of her past would likely not affect their relationship with one-another in the future. Renee was hopeful that Phillip had a connection to his father’s family, even if she did not.

It was a pleasant, day in Port Angeles. The temperature was in the upper-seventies and the sky was stuffed with fluffy white clouds. An offshore breeze kept the city comfortably cooled in the summer. The smell of the nearby ocean spilled inland across the entire community. It was an ideal day from Phillip’s perspective. Running about out of doors was his favorite activity. The only requirement he had for this was someone to play with. Normally this would have been one or more of his friends in the neighborhood, but Renee had been keeping him indoors, and clean, all morning in preparation for Brian’s and Julia’s visit. It took only a small amount of encouragement from his two cousins to get him out of the house.

The Swan’s backyard was wide and clean. A well tendered carpet of grass covered the bulk of it. An apple tree, and a pear tree, was situated at the far end of it, opposite the house. A sparse collection of flowers ringed the yard. Phillip, Brian and Julia spilled out into the area and raced over to the football lying in the middle of it. Phillip quickly snatched it up off the ground.

“That’s not a real football,” Brian exclaimed.

“Yes it is.”

Phillip’s defense was based upon his ignorance regarding the size and makeup of a regulation football. The ball he had was made of rubber and was half as large as the football that the professionals used. This variation from the original was of no importance to Phillip. It looked and functioned just like a football and that was all he cared about. As he and Brian argued over this difference, Julia wandered about a group of flowers and studied them with awe.

“It’s a stupid ball,” Brian declared with finality.

“No it’s not.”

“There’s nothing to do here,” Brian sulked angrily. “My mother said you only have two movie theaters here.”

“So?”

“So, we have lots of movie theaters,” Brian argued back. “If we were in San Diego, there’d be lots of stuff to do.”

“We do stuff here,” Phillip retaliated defensively

“We have everything you have and more,” Brian insisted snidely.

“Do you have werewolves?” Phillip quickly challenged.

Brian gave Phillip an incredulous look in response to this inquiry.

“We do,” Phillip declared a second later.

“No you don’t. There’s no such thing as werewolves.”

“Yes there is,” Phillip sternly contradicted. “There in the forest. I’ve seen them.”

“You’re lying,” Brian challenged.

“No I’m not, they’re my friends,” Phillip insisted excitedly.

“You’re crazy.”

Brian had no reason to take his cousin’s claim seriously. He suspected that he was making up this fanciful story to make his home community seem more interesting. The fact that he was doing this, by his estimation, made him feel all the more superior to Phillip. For Brian this was a pleasing development. This little cousin that he had never met before had grown, within his mind, to be a nemesis of sorts. As the eldest child and the only son of his parents, Brian enjoyed the adoration of both his mother and father. The special sentimental importance that the name Phillip Jr. had with his mother over the past several years made him resentful of his cousin without ever having seen him.

Brian could tell just from the way his mother spoke about Phillip that she had special feelings for him. The idea of sharing his mother’s love with an unseen rival had been a growing vexation for him. It was bad enough that he had to share her affections with Julia. With her, however, his mother’s affinity was barely visible most of the time. Julia was not spoken of with intense longing every time her name was mentioned. Her constant presence made repetitive emotional displays too redundant for her mother to even consider doing. To the opposite of this, whenever Sharon spoke of Phillip she did so with pining affection. In Brian’s mind, Phillip was a competitor for his mother’s love and it felt to him as if he was losing the game.

“It’s true,” Phillip insisted desperately. “There’s a whole bunch of them in the forest.”

“You’re weird,” Brian exclaimed with disgust.

Phillip looked at him with a mixture of dread and anger. He knew he could say or do nothing more to convince him that he was telling the truth. In Phillip’s mind, the shape-shifters were the coolest people anywhere. Brian’s incessant belittling of him and his community made him eager to share what he knew with him.

His acquaintance with Nessie and Jacob is how Phillip came to know about the shape-shifters. His connection with the Cullen family in general was too close for them to hide their many secrets. Phillip knew from past instructions that he should never speak of vampires or werewolves to anyone outside of the family. He subconsciously construed this to mean any adult outside of the family. He had spoken of this, by accident, on several occasions to kids his age. In each instance the talk was shortly dismissed as whimsy and forgotten in favor of a new activity. Children were a different entity from adults in his mind. The reasoning his family gave him for not talking about what he knew seemed only to be applicable to someone much older than he. This impression was reinforced after each telling to a child that produced no bad result, not that he knew what this would look like. All that anyone had ever told him was that bad things would happen. In Phillip’s mind, children seemed incapable of making bad things happen. So from time to time, Phillip innocently allowed a remark here or a story there to slip out.

Phillip’s casual comments about vampires and werewolves were motivated by a desire to tell everyone he knew about them. With each passing day as he grew older and wiser, he became increasingly aware of how much more he was aware of by comparison to everyone else, outside of his family. The realization, that he was living a life that was spectacularly more amazing than his friends and acquaintances, often had him near to the point of bursting with confessions and stories about all that he knew. As his intellect began to mature, his longing for the envy of others grew as well. Because he was just at the beginning of understanding the ramifications that came with telling others all that he knew, slips of the tongue were not uncommon events. When this happened around adults it was simply dismissed as flights of fantasy.

“Can I see the wolves?” Julia emoted with an intrigued expression.

“They don’t show themselves to anyone but me,” Phillip confessed solemnly.

“See, I told you. He’s lying,” Brian insisted snidely.

“I’m not,” Phillip pleaded. “I’ve seen them.”

“Yeah, then why can’t we see them?”

“They don’t want anyone to see them,” Phillip responded plaintively.

“I don’t believe you,” Brian countered derisively.

“Why not,” Julia whined with an inflection of curiosity?

“Shut up!” Brian loudly ordered his sister. “You’re both stupid.”

Julia took no great offense from her brother’s command. She was used to being ignored and ordered about by him. She had yet to develop the competitive temperament necessary to retaliate against his treatment of her. Instead she pouted and said nothing in response. Julia had no ill feelings towards anyone, during most occasions. Invariably, she was eager to please everyone within close proximity to her. She reveled in the smiles and affections of others and encouraged them whenever possible.

Julia seldom held on to the topic of conversation between Phillip and her brother. Subsequently, she limited her input to displays of innocent smiles and a cheery disposition. Normally, the gist of their conversations was of little interest to her. She was, however, genuinely intrigued by the mention of werewolves in the forest. Fanciful ideas and whimsical stories were a constant fascination for her in this time of her life. In her home, in San Diego, she regularly entreated her father to read to her about Princesses and witches, dragons and heroes. There was never enough whimsy in her daily life to fulfill her want for it. This talk from her new cousin, Phillip, suddenly made him the most exciting person she knew. Talk of magical wolves in the forest was all she needed to hear to catch and hold her full attention.

“I don’t care if you don’t believe me,” Phillip declared resolutely. “It’s true. There are werewolves in the forest.”

“And they’re your friends?” Brian asked contemptuously.

“Yes, we play in the forest together.”

“Werewolves don’t play with kids,” Brian mocked sternly. “Werewolves eat kids.”

“Not these werewolves,” Phillip quickly contradicted. “They’re my friends.”

“Then who are they?” Brian questioned with an air of self-confidence.

Phillip had no immediate response for this. He was reluctant to give his cousin the names of the werewolves that he played with. He instinctively knew that this above all else, was a secret that he must never give out to anyone. Dumbfounded by the question, he cast his eyes towards the ground and shuffled his feet for a second.

“I don’t know,” Phillip lied.

“Then how do you know that they’re werewolves?” Brian triumphantly challenged.

“I just do,” Phillip responded in an anguished tone of voice.

Brian was convinced that he had cornered his cousin in a lie. He could see that Phillip was unsettled by the question and his instinct told him to pressure Phillip for the truth, not that he was hoping to hear it. What he really wanted was to see Phillip cry. He inched towards his cousin and leaned forward before speaking again.

“You can’t know that if you didn’t see them change, can you?” Brian hollered at his smaller cousin.

“Yes I can,” Phillip meekly answered back.

“You’re a liar, aren’t you?” Brian hollered back an instant behind Phillip’s answer, inching still closer towards his cousin.

“No I’m not,” Phillip fumed behind clinched teeth. Tears began to well up in his eyes.

“Yes you are,” Brian pummeled again, loudly. “You’re a stupid liar and you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I do know what I’m talking about,” Phillip insisted as a tear rolled down his cheek.

Phillip’s stance was rigid and defiant despite the tears. Brian reveled in his accomplishment and inched in still closer as he towered a head taller than his cousin.

“You don’t know, nothing,” Brian spat at Phillip from a distance of less than a foot. “You’re just a liar and I don’t believe anything you say.”

With his face frowned with anger, more tears continued to roll down Phillip’s cheeks. His hands were clinched into fists at the end of rigid arms that extended down both sides of his person. Phillip desperately wanted to hit his bigger, taller, cousin. He wanted to hurt him, to make him cry like he was doing to him. However, he knew that he did not have the size or strength to beat him and he glowered all the more furiously at his cousin for it.

“I’m going inside to watch television,” Brian announced derisively as he turned and started to walk away. “You girls can stay out and play catch,” Brian concluded with haughty disdain.

Phillip watched him walk away. His stance rigid, his feet firmly fixed in their tracks, he continued to glare at his cousin from behind a tear streaked face. Several seconds later, after Brian had entered the house, Julia walked over to her cousin’s side. She could see his pain and his sadness and she empathized, as was her nature. Phillip looked to his right to note her staring at him. Just as soon as he had done this, his little cousin offered the only words she could think of to comfort him.

“I believe you.”


	16. Sinister Designs

The large living-room was warm and bright. Solid wood, dark cherry finished, coffee and end tables, console table, keepsake cabinet and TV console, dominated the décor with their antique European flavor. An oriental patterned area rug complemented the red, brown and gold hues in the fabric that covered the sofa and sofa chair cushions. A sheer white lace inner curtain softly filtered the mid day’s light into the room. Reddish brown, ornately detailed, outer draperies, drawn wide open, accented the room’s décor. Tan colored walls were modestly adorned with Baroque, Georgian and Victorian period paintings, each bordered in expensive, intricately carved, wood frames. An oval wall mirror, over the console table, shared the same pattern of flowery framing. Two rows, three apiece, of six inch round, gold trimmed, recessed lighting was situated in the ceiling, all in the off mode. Two, brass, ornate antique looking, five foot high, floor lamps stood sentinel at either end of the seven foot long sofa, and at the far side of each end table.

The matron of the house, Charlotte Walsh, led her guest into this room with stately decorum. Standing five-feet eight-inches tall, the forty-seven year old blond was slender and handsome. She wore a knee length flower patterned white and blue dress, a pair of nickel size silver loop earrings, a white pearl necklace and one and one-quarter inch heel, stone gray, pumps.

“Please, make yourself at home,” Charlotte offered politely. “Joe will be right down.”

“Thank you,” Sharon responded softly.

“I’m sorry, I’m in the middle of preparing dinner,” Charlotte began as she pointed towards the exit at the back end of the room.

“Oh no, that’s alright,” Sharon quickly cut in.

Charlotte gave Sharon her thanks with a smile and then left the room by way of the exit that she indicated to. Sharon chose to remain standing as she watched Charlotte walk away. Thirty seconds into her wait, a six-foot six-inch tall, fifty-seven year old man casually descended the stairs, from the second floor, into the foyer of the house. Bald along the top of his head, he maintained a short and well groomed covering of silver-white hair along the sides and back. His thin, well-toned physique was attired in an olive green polo shirt, creased khaki colored pants and tan leather deck shoes. Without missing a step, he strode into the living-room and stopped directly in front of Sharon.

“Sharon Cunningham I presume,” Joseph Walsh stated blandly.

There was no look of jest in his demeanor. His stare was direct and his bearing was authoritative.

“Yes,” Sharon acknowledged meekly.

Sharon was slightly intimidated by the man standing before her. This condition was nurtured more so by her past communications with him. She had deviated from the outline he suggested for her and she suspected he was not pleased by this.

“Better late than never, I suppose,” Joseph retorted with a stone face expression and a nod of his head.

“Let’s go into my study,” Joseph continued a second later.

“Okay.”

Joseph turned about without fanfare and set off for a room across the foyer and down a short hall at the back end of the house.

The study was decidedly masculine in appearance and texture. A large ornate mahogany desk was situated along the adjacent wall to the right of the door. The interior was spacious. A hardwood floor was partially covered in the center of the room with a Persian area rug, intricately patterned with a collection of red, brown and yellow hues. A high-back, black leather, mahogany, office chair was behind the desk. Two, leather cushioned, mahogany chairs were situated in front of it. Four, large, dark brown, leather, sofa chairs were positioned along the outer margins of the area rug, each facing toward the center. Each chair had a small end table to either side of it. Situated to the right of each chair, behind the end table, was a five foot high, bronze, floor lamp. Raised wood paneling, with built in shelves and floor cabinets, covered every available space along the walls. An assortment of books and knickknacks were neatly stored about the room, within the shelving. The stuffed head of a deer, complete with a large display of antlers, hung high on the wall behind the desk. A large pine, nutmeg finished, gun cabinet was situated in the near right corner of the room relative to the desk. Three narrow windows, one-foot by three-foot, seven-feet up from the floor, along the wall opposite the door, allowed the only light from the outside to enter the room.

Joseph Walsh ushered Sharon into this room and closed the heavy, raised wood, door behind her.

“Won’t you have a seat?” Joseph offered with a point to the closes sofa chair.

“Thank you,” Sharon acknowledged with a nod before sitting herself in the large leather chair.

Joseph walked over to the shelving within the wall facing Sharon and indicated to a small collection of decorative crystal decanters. Each contained a different alcoholic beverage.

“Can I get you anything?” Joseph offered with a gesture towards the beverages.

“I’ll have whatever you’re having,” Sharon responded pleasantly.

Joseph poured himself and Sharon a short whiskey. After handing her the decorative etched crystal glassware, Joseph took a seat himself, opposite her.

“We were expecting you a week ago,” Joseph announced after taking a gulp of his whisky.

“I know,” Sharon responded softly. “I had something I had to do.”

“And that something was visiting the Swans?” Joseph questioned directly.

“Yes,” Sharon answered a second before taking a sip of her whisky.

Joseph took a moment to examine her before reacting to her response.

“Mrs. Cunningham, time is critical right now,” Joseph reported tactfully.

Despite some feeling of intimidation, Sharon was not prepared to faint away from the man sitting before her. Now that their conversing had commenced, her anxiety was starting to wane.

“It’s critical for me as well.”

Joseph let out an audible sigh of discouragement as he contemplated his situation. Half a dozen seconds later he spoke again.

“I hope you’re not rethinking your decision?”

“No, I haven’t,” Sharon shortly responded. “I’m here and I will carry through with my promise. But I need to push the timetable back a week.”

Joseph was clearly not pleased with this answer. He took a dozen seconds to digest it along with another gulp of whisky.

“You’re putting us in a tight spot,” Joseph reported with some urgency.

“I’m sorry, but that’s the way it has to be,” Sharon quickly returned.

“You do know that visiting the Swans was never part of this?” Joseph countered with equal swiftness.

“You’re asking me to alienate myself from my nephew, possibly forever,” Sharon retorted calmly. “If a week is all I’m ever going to have with him, then I want it …all of it.”

Joseph was clearly disheartened by this answer. He studied her, with a grave expression, for half a dozen seconds before resigning himself to this decision.

“Okay, enjoy your week.”

Sharon relaxed a little with this response, but betrayed no evidence of this to Joseph. She then took another sip of her whisky while Joseph studied her in silence. She set her glass down a few seconds and returned his stare for several seconds more before speaking again. Joseph was waiting for the other shoe to drop. He had surmised by Sharon’s visit to his home that she did not come just to tell him to wait. He knew she could have and likely would have done this over the phone had this been all she wanted to talk about.

“Have you found out anything about my brother?” Sharon exhaled as if a pressure valve had just given way.

Joseph paused for several seconds to give his guest a careful look. His concern at that moment was that the wrong answer might have a detrimental effect to his plans.

“We’re still looking into it,” Joseph confessed after a moment of pondering.

“You’ve had two months,” Sharon challenged in a mildly alarmed tone.

Joseph knew that this was a sensitive subject for her. He feared the effect that an unsatisfactory answer might have on her and quickly searched his mind for a likely acceptable reply.

“The local authorities did a thorough job investigating your brother’s disappearance,” Joseph explained calmly. “We’re coming at this from eight years away.”

“I don’t need you to investigate that,” Sharon insisted with a hint of hysterics. “Renee and her clan of relatives know something about my brother’s disappearance. I need you to find out what they’re hiding.”

Joseph had no reaction to the desperation in Sharon’s request. His instincts told him to counter her rising anxiety with calm and control.

Sharon spent much of the past seven years researching the Swans and the Cullens. She did much of this on her own. The expense of employing private investigators became more than she could justify after the first year. The reports they returned echoed that of the Jacksonville Police Department, but often to a lesser degree. Sharon was never satisfied with these reports. She could not stop herself from believing that Renee was somehow criminally responsible for whatever happened to her brother. This suspicion was reinforced by the peculiar behavior of the Cullens at the time of his disappearance.

“So far we haven’t been able to find anything in your ex sister-in-law’s past that links her to your brother’s disappearance,” Joseph reported stoically. “However, we are still looking.”

“What about those Cullens?” Sharon questioned sternly. “There has to be something nefarious going on with that family.”

“The Cullens are interesting,” Joseph partially pondered out loud, “but it’s for the opposite reason.”

Sharon took a deep breath and seethed a little before reacting to this report.

“Why is that every time somebody looks at these people you all come back with the same report?”

“And what report would that be?” Joseph casually inquired.

“They’re squeaky clean.”

Joseph nodded his head in the affirmative as if to say he agreed with this assessment.

“The report that I got back was that they’re almost too clean.”

“That has to mean something?” Sharon challenged.

“No, it doesn’t,” Joseph corrected. “It usually means that the person or persons in question are inoffensive and boring.”

“So, you’re giving up?” Sharon questioned sternly.

“Mrs. Cunningham,” Joseph began in a firm voice. “I would love to find something that implicates the Swans or the Cullens in your brother’s disappearance, but the reality of the situation is that this is an eight year old investigation. The chances of us finding something that the original investigation missed, is extremely unlikely.”

Sharon sat back in her chair and fumed at the hearing of these words.

“We’ll keep looking,” Joseph continued in a firm voice, “but I need you to stay focused on what you came here for.”

Sharon paused for a couple of seconds to give Joseph a stern look and then she quickly pushed herself up onto her feet as if she had just been insulted. She held a rigid stance for two seconds as she watched Joseph follow her lead. As soon as they were both standing and staring across into each other’s eyes, Sharon gave her response to Joseph’s request.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Walsh, I’ll give you what you want. When I’m finished with Renee and Charlie Swan, you’ll be able to mount their heads alongside your buck.”


	17. The Lie Detection

The Cullen family of vampires seldom visited Port Angeles. This was true despite the fact that their faces were unfamiliar to the overwhelming majority of the city’s inhabitants. They simply had no reason to go there, other than to visit Renee, Charlie and Phillip. Even in this, Bella, with Edward in tow, were generally the only members of this group to make the trip. The Cullens primarily restricted their presence, in Washington State, to the wilderness. Late the next afternoon, early Monday evening, the Cullens as a whole made a rare exception to this practice.

Their travel to Port Angeles on this day was not motivated by a desire to visit with Bella’s parents and brother. Their arrival was timed for a meeting with Sharon Cunningham as well. Alice had a vision that the family was looking to Edward to confirm. Bella was Edward’s excuse to be there. He had never in the past visited the Swans on his own. The rest of the Cullens, with the exception of Nessie, had no plans to enter the Swan home. Their reason for going to Port Angeles was simply for the reason of keeping the family group intact. Their plan was to hang out nearby and stand guard about the house.

It was six-fifteen when Bella, Edward and Nessie arrived at the front door of the Swan home. The sun was still two-hours away from being hidden below the horizon. The weather was pleasant. A gentle offshore breeze kept the city bathed in the fresh, cool, air from over the ocean. A crowded stream of mammoth broken clouds rolled steadily by overhead. Sunlight beamed between the cracks in this covering and brightly illuminated patches of the landscape like a gigantic airborne spotlight panning across the earth. Bella, Edward and Nessie coordinated their approach to the home beneath the shadow of a large cumulus floating by between the sun and the house.

“Hi,” Renee greeted with barely contained shock.

“Hi, Mom,” Bella greeted back, as she stepped through the front doorway she hugged her mother the instant she walked in.

Nessie and Edward echoed Bella’s greeting as they followed her into the house. Edward closed the door behind him.

Renee and Bella shortly separated from their embrace as Edward and Nessie looked on.

“I didn’t know you were coming,” Renee softly reported with a stunned expression. “If I had, I would have invited you over to have dinner with me, _Sharon_ and the kids,” Renee continued with the same stunned expression.

Renee gave Bella and Edward a wide eyed look when she spoke Sharon’s name. She was truly surprised by their appearance. Renee had told Sharon during their first meeting that the Cullens had relocated to Alaska. She knew that Sharon was in the living-room and was likely listening to every word that was being said. Her talk about eating dinner together was a warning to Bella and Edward of Sharon’s presence in the house.

“Oh no,” Bella boisterously responded with a large smile. “We wanted to surprise you.”

Renee could not have been more surprised. She was, however, slightly relieved to know that her daughter and son-in-law were acting on a plan and not stumbling into an awkward situation.

“So, Sharon is here?” Bella queried with feigned excitement.

“Yes, she’s in the living-room with Phillip,” Renee reported with an intrigued inflection.

“Wow, Nessie told me how well you two have been getting along,” Bella responded with an anxious tone to her voice. “I know how much you want this to work, Mom. I’m happy for you.”

Renee was momentarily confused into silence. She knew from past conversations with her daughter that she and the Cullens in general had no desire to meet with any of the Dwyers. This was a position that she quietly endorsed. Despite this, she could tell by all that she was seeing and hearing that the plan at this moment was to do exactly the opposite. She shortly awakened from her confusion and accepted the situation.

“Come into the living-room. I would like you to meet her,” Renee encouraged pleasantly.

“Okay,” Bella responded with a sly smile.

Renee led Bella, Edward and Nessie into the living-room. Sharon was watching Phillip and her son, Brian, play a race car video game. Julia was sitting by them, on the floor, enjoying their play. Phillip was caught up in the excitement of the game when they walked in. He quickly set the player on pause and raced over to Bella with a thrilled expression on his face.

“Bella,” Phillip exclaimed loudly.

“Hi, Little Brother,” Bella responded as she pulled him into a hug.

A second later, Bella gave him a peck on the forehead and then squeezed him back into her hug.

“Are you coming to my birthday party?” Phillip questioned eagerly as he separated from her embrace.

“Of course, why wouldn’t I,” Bella questioned back with a large smile.

“You too,” Phillip queried Edward excitedly?

“Absolutely,” Edward answered with a large smile, by his standards.

Sharon watched this reunion with great interest. She knew all the Cullens by name, and Bella and Edward by face, but their relationship with her nephew was something she knew nothing about. After a few seconds of watching, she rose off the couch and awaited her turn to meet and greet the new arrivals. Renee moved halfway between the two, half a dozen feet to either side, before making the introductions.

“Sharon, this is my daughter, Bella, and my son-in-law, Edward,” Renee announced pleasantly. “I don’t know if you remember, but you’ve met before.”

“Yes, I remember,” Sharon responded coolly.

Bella quickly walked over and extended her hand. “Hi,” she greeted with a slightly exaggerated expression of happiness.

“Hi,” Sharon responded coolly, while shaking Bella’s hand.

“I’m so happy to see you here,” Bella gushed. “I know how much this means to my mom.”

“Well, I thought it was about time,” Sharon countered hesitantly.

The children watched this meeting with no particular interest. Bella shortly turned her attention towards them.

“And these are your children?” Bella inquired buoyantly.

“Yes, this is Brian and this is Julia,” Sharon answered in a subdued manner.

Bella went over to the kids and devoted a minute to greet and ingratiate herself with them. Julia responded with smiles and giggles to her playful attention. Brian’s response was reserved and polite. Edward maintained a stoic distance from everyone as he studied Sharon with an unwavering stare. Sharon was aware of his fixation and returned his look for a pair of seconds and then turned away again.

“I hear you’re only staying for a week?” Edward queried Sharon coolly. His stare remained fixed as he spoke the words.

Bella suddenly ended her attention towards the children and redirected it toward Sharon and Edward. Nessie was already fixated on the two. Renee became suddenly aware of her daughter’s and granddaughter’s interest in Edward’s inquiry and was instantly displeased by this. She knew something was afoot and she feared how it would affect her hope for a renewed relationship with Sharon.

“Yes,” Sharon answered tersely.

Sharon showed some annoyance with Edward’s stare. This was a reaction that Renee was quick to take notice of.

“Yes, but Sharon and the kids will be here for Phillip’s birthday,” Renee quickly interceded for her discomforted ex sister-in-law.

Edward was unfazed by Renee’s attempt to divert his attention onto her and continued to hold his study of Sharon.

“Do you have any other plans during your stay here?” Edward pried somberly.

Renee was suddenly suspicious of Edward’s interest in Sharon’s plans and all the more so by Bella’s back seat role in his inquiries.

Sharon hesitated to answer as she studied the face of the asker.

“No.”

Sharon’s answer was soft and direct. An awkward silence followed behind it. After a brief pause, Renee cheerfully spoke up to ease the tension.

“Well, the next time you guys visit, we’ll just have to have some activities ready for you to do while you’re here.”

Julia cheered this idea on, but the adults in the room remained unaffected by this chipper proclamation. Renee took a moment to study the effect of her words on Sharon, Bella and Edward before looking to Nessie for support in her efforts to relax the mood. She, in turn, ignored the look and shifted her gaze between Sharon and Edward.

“Where’s dad,” Bella queried Renee after another two seconds of silence.

“Your father has been working super late hours all summer,” Renee happily responded.

Renee was happy for the change in subject. Her hope was that a new topic of conversation would lighten the mood. She desperately wanted Sharon to relax and return to her seat.

“I suppose the coming election has added a lot of new work to Charlie’s day?” Edward casually queried Renee while holding his gaze on Sharon.

“Yes it has,” Renee answered with a curious look to Edward.

A second later, Renee thought to suggest that everyone take a seat, but the act was cut off by a casual remark from Bella.

“I don’t know why he’s working so hard. Walsh doesn’t have a chance in hell of defeating him.”

Discomposed by this talk, Sharon briefly glanced from Bella to Edward and back again. Renee was completely confused by the talk. She hesitated for a moment to give her daughter a look of curiosity and then she quickly vocalized her previous thought in her most pleasant speech.

“Why don’t we all have a seat? I can bring out some refreshments and we can get to know one-another.”

“Ah no, I’m sorry, but it’s getting late and we really should leave now,” Sharon announced suddenly.

Renee was disheartened by Sharon’s sudden need to leave and she was more than a little displeased with Bella and Edward for it. She had no doubt that their strange behavior had made Sharon too uncomfortable to stay. She attempted to dissuade Sharon from leaving, but her effort failed. Half a dozen minutes later, Sharon and her children were out the front door. It took less than a minute after that for Renee to give voice to her anger.

“What the hell was that about?”

“What was what about?” Bella responded with feigned ignorance.

Bella followed this remark with a glance towards Phillip. Renee’s inquiry was halted by the obvious inference, but her anger remained intact. She glowered from Bella, to Edward, to Nessie and then to Bella again. Bella exploited her discombobulation to make an inquiry of her own.

“When will Dad be home?”

Bella embellished her inquiry in an excessively pleasant speech, as if nothing had transpired that evening. Renee was all the more infuriated by this facade, but she kept her reaction in check. After taking a couple of seconds to vent her anger with a few large exhales, Renee answered Bella’s question with a curt response.

“He called and said that he’ll be home about eight.”

“Good, I think we’ll stick around and say hi,” Bella replied enthusiastically.

Bella followed her declaration with a smile towards Phillip. He was taking in the whole conversation in with no thought to the subtext. He was simply eager to be in the company of Bella, Edward and Nessie, and he was anxious to know what they planned to do next. Renee, unlike her son, was all about the subtext. She knew something was motivating their strange behavior and she interpreted Bella’s looks to Phillip to mean that nothing would be said while he was in the room.

“Fine, I’ll be in the kitchen if anyone wants to talk,” Renee responded in a huff before setting off towards same.

Renee saw no reason to push the question any further at that moment. Her son was in high spirits and she elected to give him this time to enjoy Bella’s, Edward’s and Nessie’s company. Renee suspected that whatever was going on, between her daughter and son-in-law, would come out when Charlie was present and Phillip was not. She would wait her turn for answers to her questions.

Charlie arrived at home shortly after eight-thirty, tired and hungry. He was surprised and happy to see Bella and perked up for the occasion. He playfully entertained Phillip’s attention towards him, ate a hot meal, and exchanged small talk with Bella, Edward and Nessie. He regaled all with anecdotes about his day at work, and they, in turn, tossed out tidbits about their past few weeks on the peninsula. Bella, Edward and Nessie were careful to limit their reports to events suitable for Phillip’s hearing. At a quarter to ten, Phillip was ushered up to his room by Renee, to commence his night’s sleep. Charlie continued to confabulate with Bella, Edward and Nessie across the dining room table while Renee was away. Despite his casual demeanor, Charlie deduced that something of importance was going to be said this night. The behavior of all there, with the exception of Phillip, was too far outside of the norm for him not to notice. He gave no thought to retiring to his bed while this message was yet unsaid. The instant Renee returned to the table, Charlie verbalized his deduction with a stern and direct question.

“Okay, what’s going on?”

“Mom…, Dad…, Sharon is lying to you,” Bella advised in a soft voice. “She’s not here to renew her relationship with you.”

Renee stiffened her posture in response to this report. Her face turned into a scowl of skepticism. She was expecting a negative report regarding Sharon, but the actual hearing of it filled her with dread. The idea that Sharon’s intentions were insincere had been floating about in the back of her mind from the beginning, but she chose to ignore this. Sharon was there and that was all that mattered to Renee. She was determined to overcome any lingering hostility her ex sister-law might have towards her. She viewed Bella’s proclamation as interference to her plans. Renee was suddenly determined to prevent her daughter from turning Sharon into the enemy and she vocalized this with a knee jerk response.

“I don’t believe it.”

“It’s true, Mom,” Bella pleaded softly. “She has another motive for being here.”

Charlie’s response was altogether different. Bella’s report was for him a confirmation. He had been waiting for the other shoe to drop ever since Sharon arrived at his door. Everything that she said and did, from that moment to this, enhanced this suspicion. Charlie paused only long enough to digest Bella’s last report and then he calmly queried for what he next needed to know.

“And you know this how?”

“Alice,” Edward responded with a word.

“Oh please,” Renee yelled out across the table. “How can Alice know what’s going on in Sharon’s mind.”

Renee and Charlie were aware of the extrasensory capabilities of Alice, Jasper, Bella and Edward. The Cullens felt obliged to confide this information after Nessie let slip the truth about her own and her father’s mental abilities, seven years earlier. Alice’s precognition they immediately found to be amazing. Edward’s telepathy took longer for them to see as anything other than freakish. It took them more than a year to learn how to relax around him. Acclimating to his mind reading gift was still an ongoing process.

“She’s here at the invitation of Joseph Walsh,” Bella abruptly inserted.

Renee went silent at the mention of this name. The suggestion that she was acting on Joseph Walsh’s instructions went far beyond a passive animosity. Renee knew she was about to hear something she would not be able to contradict.

“She’s here to start a scandal,” Bella expressed somberly. “She’s here to hurt you, Mom …I’m sorry.”

Renee went silent with shock. She knew that there was no defense, no argument that could mitigate an accusation of this type.

“It was in her thoughts when we spoke earlier,” Edward supported softly. “She’s waiting until after Phillip’s birthday and then she plans to publically insinuate that you and Renee played some part in Phil’s disappearance,” he pointedly instructed Charlie.

Joseph Walsh spent twelve years of his life as a Narcotics Agent for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. After leaving this position, he was selected by Sheriff Allan Harrison to the position of Undersheriff of Clallam County. This was a position he held for eight years, up until Harrison lost the election for Clallam County Sheriff to Charlie, four years earlier. He had since been working as an Assistant Chief in the Criminal Investigation Division of the Washington State Patrol.

Nessie broke the silence that had descended around the table with a mildly panicked question to no one in particular.

“So, what do we do?”

Everyone seemed to be reluctant to answer that question, but it was Charlie who eventually did.

“We deal with it when it happens.”


End file.
